This section provides, in the style of a dictionary, details of the political
careers of significant West European politicians, especially those who have
been head of their country’s government or head of state.

Related entries are listed at the
end of an entry by ‘[See also: …]’. An asterisk indicates
a cross-reference to Section 1,
‘Events, groups and developments’. For example, the entry for
Auriol, Vincent has at the end ‘[See also: de Gaulle; Vichy
regime*]’. The entry for de Gaulle is in this section; that for Vichy
regime is in Section 1.

Adams, (Gerry) Gerard

Leader of the Northern Ireland party
Sinn Féin (Ourselves). Born in the Falls Road area of Belfast in 1948,
Adams was a founder member of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
and a member of the Belfast Housing Action Committee. He joined the
Republican movement in 1964. In March 1972 Adams was interned in Long Kesh
under suspicion of terrorism but was released in July 1972 to take part in
secret talks between the UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the
Irish Republican Army (IRA). He was rearrested in 1973 and tried to escape
from the Maze Prison. After his release in 1977, he was charged in 1978 with
membership of the Provisional IRA but released after seven months through
lack of evidence. Vice-President of Sinn Féin 1978–83, he became
President of the party in 1983. He was elected MP for Belfast West
1983–92 and again from 1997. In 1988 and 1993 he met with John Hume,
leader of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), to
discuss proposals for the future of Northern Ireland. He has been the key
representative of the nationalist Catholic community in negotiations with
the UK government. He has been member for Belfast West of the Northern
Ireland Assembly from 1998.

[See also: Hume; Irish Republican Army*]

Adenauer, Konrad

Chancellor of the Federal Republic of
Germany 1949–63; leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
1950–66. Adenauer was born in Cologne in 1876. He studied law and
economics, then practised law in Cologne. He joined the Catholic Centre
Party in 1906, and was elected to the Cologne city council in 1908, becoming
Lord Mayor in 1917, an office he filled until 1933. In the Weimar Republic
he was elected to the Prussian legislature. He was dismissed from his
offices by the Nazis, and was twice imprisoned by them. Appointed Lord Mayor
of Cologne in 1945 by the US occupation authorities, when the British took
over the administration of the region, they dismissed Adenauer for
non-co-operation. He was active in founding the CDU in the British zone of
occupation, and became Chairman of the Parliamentary Council (1948–49)
which met in Bonn to draft the Basic Law (the provisional constitution for
the Federal Republic). He was elected by the Bundestag as the first federal
Chancellor in September 1949, and led his party to victory in the federal
elections in 1953, 1957 and 1961. Following coalition negotiations which
required of Adenauer that he resign the chancellorship before the 1965
elections, and a series of governmental crises (including the Spiegel
Affair) which damaged his authority, he left the chancellorship in 1963. He
was elected as federal Chairman of the CDU in 1950, when the CDU created an
organisation for
the Federal Republic (having previously existed as zonal and Land parties).
Adenauer was tempted to seek the office of federal president in 1959, but
withdrew when he was assured that he could not extend the very limited
powers of that office. His chancellorship was marked by a search for the
security of the Federal Republic through close alliances with other West
European countries and with the USA, leading to the Federal Republic
becoming an enthusiastic partner in the institutions of European integration
and NATO. The Friendship Treaty between the Federal Republic and France in
1963 was another indication of this diplomatic policy. Adenauer was accused
of being insufficiently enthusiastic about promoting German reunification,
and it was under his leadership that the Hallstein Doctrine was promulgated.
The Federal Republic became extremely prosperous during Adenauer’s
chancellorship. As Chancellor, Adenauer frequently experienced difficulties
with his coalition partners, especially the FDP. His authoritarian style
similarly led to problems within his own party. Nevertheless, his undoubted
success in developing the new Federal Republic as a secure and prosperous
democratic state during the period of the Cold War, and his active
utilisation of the office of federal chancellor to promote his policies, led
commentators to apply the term ‘chancellor democracy’ to the
period of his leadership. Adenauer died in 1967.

Andreotti, Giulio

Andreotti was Prime Minister of Italy
1972–73; 1976–79; and 1989–92. Born in Rome in 1919,
Andreotti graduated in law from the University of Rome and served as
President of the Federation of Catholic Universities 1942–45. A member
of the Christian Democrats (DC), he was elected to the Italian Constituent
Assembly in 1945 and served in the Chamber of Deputies from 1946, becoming a
life senator in 1992. In a ministerial career spanning four decades,
Andreotti had responsibility for many policy areas including the interior,
finance, the treasury, defence, industry and commerce, the budget and
economic planning and foreign affairs. He was Chairman of the DC
parliamentary party group 1948–72. In February 1972 he became Prime
Minister for the first time at the head of a single party interim
government. He then formed a coalition government of the centre, but
resigned in June 1973. From 1976, Andreotti led a DC government with the
support of the Communist Party until the Communists withdrew their backing
in 1979. In July 1989 he formed a five-party coalition which fell after the
elections of 1992. In 1993 he became embroiled in the Tangentopoli scandal:
in 1993 his immunity was lifted and in March 1995 he was charged with links
to the Mafia (acquitted in 1999), with complicity in murder in November
1995, and with financial corruption.

[See also: Tangentopoli*]

Arias Navarro, Carlos

General Franco’s feared head of
security and Prime Minister of Spain 1973–76. Arias Navarro was born
in 1908 in Madrid and received a doctorate in law from the Central
University of Madrid. He worked at the Ministry of Justice as a civil
servant before becoming a public prosecutor in Malaga in 1933. He supported
the rebellion led by General Franco during the Spanish civil war and was
arrested by the republican government in 1936. He was freed by pro-Franco
Falangist forces and joined Franco’s army. When Franco won the civil war, Arias
Navarro was appointed to a series of provincial governorships before
becoming Director General of security in 1957, renowned for his harsh
dealings with enemies of the regime. He was appointed Minister of the
Interior in Carrero Blanco’s government of 1973. When Carrero Blanco
was assassinated by terrorists in December 1973, Arias Navarro succeeded him
as Prime Minister. He was faced with the difficult task of promoting a
gradual political liberalisation to ensure a peaceful transfer of executive
power from the failing Franco to King Juan Carlos. He was reappointed by
King Juan Carlos after Franco’s death in 1975 but the King was
critical of his slow progress in democratising Spain. Arias Navarro resigned
in 1976 and retired from politics. He died on 27 November 1989.

Ashdown, Paddy

Former leader of the British Liberal
Democratic Party. Ashdown was born in New Delhi in 1941. After a career as
an officer in the Royal Marines (1959–72), work for the Foreign Office
and a period in private industry, he entered the House of Commons in 1983.
He became leader of the Liberal Democrats in 1988, but resigned in 1999. He
led the party to an astonishing electoral success in 1997, when –
thanks to a successful electoral campaign focused on ‘target’
seats and a clear identity as an anti-Conservative party – it acquired
nearly fifty MPs, more than at any time since the 1920s (though it had a
slightly lower vote-share in 1997 than in 1992). Ashdown had hopes that
Blair would invite him to take a cabinet post, as a symbol of cross-party
co-operation, but the large size of Labour’s majority dissuaded Blair
from doing this. Ashdown did obtain the creation of a cabinet committee to
deal with constitutional issues, upon which the Liberals had representation,
and the appointment of a Commission to examine the case for some kind of
electoral reform, though it soon became clear that electoral reform would
not be brought forward as Labour policy in the foreseeable future.

[See also: Blair]

Attlee, Clement

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
1945–51; leader of the Labour Party 1935–55. Attlee was born in
London in 1883, and studied at Oxford University. He became a lawyer, then a
lecturer in social sciences. He served in the First World War, and was then
briefly mayor of Stepney, in London. He became an MP in 1922, and served as
a junior minister in the Labour governments led by Ramsay MacDonald in 1924
and 1929–31. As leader of the Labour Party during the Second World
War, he was brought into Churchill’s coalition cabinet. After the
general election of 1945 had taken place (but before votes had been counted,
a delay because of the large numbers of votes from the armed forces serving
overseas), Attlee accompanied Churchill to the Potsdam conference, in case
it turned out that Labour would form a government after the election results
were known. Attlee’s Labour government introduced an ambitious
programme of radical policies, particularly implementation of welfare state
provisions (including the National Health Service) outlined in the Beveridge
Report, and nationalisation of public utilities such as the coal mines,
railways and gas and electricity supply, as well as policies to cope with
post-war reconstruction in a context of severe austerity and adjustments of
Britain’s international status during a period when parts of the
British Empire were seeking self-rule. Attlee died in 1967.

[See also: Beveridge Report*; Potsdam conference*]

Auriol, Vincent

President of the French Fourth Republic
1947–53. Auriol was born in the Haute-Garonne in 1884. After studying
law, he practised as a lawyer, entering the Parliament of the Third Republic
as a Socialist deputy in 1914. He served as Finance Minister and Justice
Minister in 1936–38. After internment as an opponent of Marshal
Pétain and the Vichy regime, he fled to Britain in 1942 and became
associated with de Gaulle’s Free French group in London. After
representing France at the United Nations, then serving briefly as president
of the National Assembly, he was elected as first President of the new
Fourth Republic in 1947. He died in 1966.

[See also: de Gaulle; Vichy regime*]

Aznar López, José María

Prime Minister of Spain since 1996.
Born in 1953 in Madrid, Aznar studied law at the University Complutense of
Madrid before working as a tax inspector. He joined the Alianza Popular (AP)
in 1978 (the forerunner of the Partido Popular (PP)) and was elected to the
Spanish Parliament in 1982. In 1987 he was elected President of the
autonomous community of Castilla-León, a position he held until 1989.
He has been president of the PP since 1990. He re-entered Parliament in
1989. He became Prime Minister of Spain in 1996 following the general
election that year, and again following his party’s successes in the
general election in March 2000. He played a major role in modernising his
party, enabling it to discard its Francoist legacy and bringing it electoral
success. His leadership of the government has been largely responsible for
Spain’s economic growth in recent years. He survived a car-bomb attack
by ETA terrorists in 1995.

[See also: ETA*]

Bahr, Egon

Bahr was born in 1922 in Treffurt
(Thuringia). He became a journalist, and joined the West German Social
Democratic Party in 1957. Bahr was given a leading foreign policy advisory
role during the grand coalition, serving under Foreign Minister Brandt. When
Brandt became Chancellor in 1969, Bahr became a senior negotiator of the
agreements later embodied in the ‘Ostpolitik’ treaties with the
USSR, Poland and the German Democratic Republic. Having been elected to the
Bundestag in 1972, he was appointed as Minister without Portfolio
1972–74, and Minister for Overseas Development 1974–76. He
served as federal business manager (the equivalent of party general
secretary) of the SPD 1976–81.

[See also: Ostpolitik*]

Bahro, Rudolf

East German dissident and one of the
founders of the German Green Party. Bahro was born in Bad Flinsberg in 1935,
and studied philosophy at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He was a member
of the SED (the East German communist party). Employed first in journalism,
then as an economist in a factory, Bahro became increasingly critical of the
regime of the German Democratic Republic. This criticism, based on the
conclusion that the ruling party in the GDR had distorted true communism,
was laid out in his book: The Alternative, which was published in
West Germany in 1977. The decision to publish led to his arrest and Bahro
was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment in 1978 on grounds of
anti-socialist and subversive activity, but under an amnesty was then
allowed to emigrate to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1979. There Bahro
associated himself with the nascent Green movement, helping to found the
Green Party in 1980, and aligning himself with the fundamentalist wing of that party. His
Marxist and environmentalist beliefs led him to resign from the party in
1985 in protest at the party’s failure to persist with
‘pure’ ecological policy positions.

[See also: Realos and Fundis*]

Balladur, Edouard

Prime Minister of France 1993–95.
Balladur was born in 1929 at Smyrna in Turkey. He studied law at
Aix-en-Provence and at the Paris Institute of Political Studies and
graduated from the National College of Administration in 1957. In 1963 he
joined the staff of Prime Minister Pompidou to advise on social and
industrial relations. He was part of Pompidou’s May 1968 crisis team,
taking part in the Grenelle negotiations with the unions. When Pompidou
became President, Balladur worked for him, becoming the Elyseé
Secretary-General in 1972. After Pompidou’s death in 1974, Balladur
moved to the private sector. From 1980, Chirac often consulted him
informally on political and economic issues. Balladur was elected a Deputy
of the National Assembly on the Rassemblement pour la République (RPR)
list in 1986. A supporter of ‘cohabitation’, he joined Prime
Minister Chirac’s cabinet as Minister of the Economy and Finance,
taking responsibility for the government’s free-market programme.
Re-elected in 1988, Balladur worked to transform the alliance between the
RPR and the Union pour la Démocratie Française (UDF) into a
moderate conservative grouping putting forward a single presidential
candidate. He was Prime Minister of France 1993–95.

[See also: Chirac; Pompidou]

Barre, Raymond

Prime Minister of France 1976–81.
Barre was born on the island of Réunion in 1924. After studying
political science and law at the University of Paris, he entered the civil
service, became a professor at Paris University, and joined the EEC
Commission as Vice-President responsible for financial and economic affairs
(1967–73). In 1976 he served briefly as Minister for Foreign Trade in
Chirac’s government, before succeeding Chirac in August 1976 as Prime
Minister, serving as his own Minister for Economics and Finance until 1978.
His ‘Barre Plan’ sought to deal with the economic and currency
problems facing France. He became Prime Minister for a second term following
the general election of 1978, but resigned in 1981 following
Mitterrand’s election as President. He stood unsuccessfully as
presidential candidate in 1988.

[See also: Chirac]

Barzel, Rainer

Leader of the West German Christian
Democrats 1971–73. Born in 1924 in East Prussia, Barzel qualified as a
lawyer. He was elected as a Christian Democratic candidate in the Bundestag
election of 1957. He served briefly as Adenauer’s Minister for
All-German Affairs (1962–63). On the death of von Brentano in 1964,
Barzel became leader of the Christian Democrat parliamentary party,
retaining that post until he resigned in 1973. Barzel was elected as party
leader in 1971, was the unsuccessful nominee for chancellor in the first
ever ‘constructive vote of no confidence’ in 1972 and was
selected as chancellor-candidate for the Christian Democrats for the 1972
Bundestag election. After resigning as party leader and leader of the
parliamentary party in 1973, he returned as Minister for Inner-German
Relations in Kohl’s cabinet in 1982, and became Chairman of the
Bundestag in 1983 (equivalent to the Speaker in the House of Commons), a
post he retained until he resigned in 1984 because of his involvement in the
scandal surrounding the Flick Affair.

Bastian, Gerd [See: Kelly, Petra]

Baudouin, King of Belgium

King of Belgium 1951–93. Baudouin
was born in 1930 in Stuyvenberg, near Brussels. Reflecting the divisions in
Belgian society, his education was conducted half in French, half in
Flemish. The reigning King Leopold’s clumsy attempts at intervening in
politics during the inter-war period caused resentment against the royal
family in Belgium, and, after the Second World War, they went into exile in
Switzerland. Leopold was only allowed to return to the throne in 1950 on
condition that his son Baudouin take on most of his powers, becoming Prince
Royal of Belgium and head of state. Leopold abdicated on 16 July 1951 in
Baudouin’s favour. Unlike his father, Baudouin was widely respected,
particularly for his scrupulously neutral dealings with the Flemish and
Walloon (French-speaking) communities and for his part in securing the
country’s long transition to a federal state. His reign restored faith
in the monarchy in Belgium. The extent of his popularity was revealed when
he caused a potential constitutional crisis in April 1989. The Belgian
Parliament had passed legislation to legalise abortion, but Baudouin,
childless and a staunch Catholic, could not in good conscience sign the
bill. The crisis was resolved through the co-operation of the government:
the Council of Ministers ruled that Baudouin was unfit to govern, giving
them the right to enact the abortion measure on their own authority. The
following day, Parliament was convened and Baudouin’s royal powers
were returned to him in full. Baudouin died on 31 July 1993 and was
succeeded by his brother, Prince Albert.

Bérégovoy, Pierre

Prime Minister of France 1992–93.
Bérégovoy was born in Deville-les-Rouen in 1925. He left school at
16, becoming a manual worker who eventually became Director of the national
gas utility in 1978. A member of the French resistance, after the Second
World War he joined the Socialist Party (SFIO), but broke with the party
over his opposition to the Algerian War. A prominent member of various
left-wing groups, Bérégovoy played a leading role in the Parti
Socialiste (PS) as it consolidated 1969–71. One of Mitterrand’s
closest supporters, Bérégovoy managed the PS co-operation with the
Communist Party (PCF). He failed, though, to revive the 1972 electoral pact
(the Joint Programme for Government between the PS, PCF and left radicals)
for the 1978 elections. Bérégovoy was campaign manager for
Mitterrand in the Socialist presidential election victory of 1981, and again
in 1988. Under Mitterrand, he was appointed Secretary-General of the
President’s Office, the first in the Fifth Republic not to have been a
senior civil servant. As Minister of Social Affairs and National Solidarity
(1982–84), he improved the social security system and as Minister of
Finance (1984–86), he modernised the financial markets and implemented
the Socialists’ policy of economic austerity. After the 1988 campaign,
he returned as Minister of Finance under the Rocard government, becoming
Prime Minister in 1992. When the PS suffered a major defeat in the
parliamentary election of 1993, Bérégovoy was replaced by Edouard
Balladur. Bérégovoy was implicated in a minor financial scandal
concerning the personal use of campaign funds. Blaming himself for the
Socialist Party’s parliamentary defeat, he committed suicide on 1 May 1993.

[See also: Balladur; Mitterrand; Rocard; Resistance
groups*]

Berlinguer, Enrico

Former leader of the Italian Communist
Party (PCI). Berlinguer was born in Sardinia in 1922. He led the PCI at the
height of its ‘eurocommunist’ phase. Since the Second World War,
the PCI had been marginalised in Italian politics through the successful
tactics of its rival, the Christian Democratic DC. The PCI had retreated
into a stance of fundamental opposition and alignment with the Soviet Union.
After the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, though, the party adopted an
independent, eurocommunist position which aimed to achieve socialism within
the existing form of regime. Berlinguer in 1973 adopted the strategy of
‘historic compromise’, aiming to establish the PCI as a
mainstream party. The strategy culminated in the agreement in 1976 to
tolerate DC Prime Minister Andreotti’s coalition government, but was
abandoned in 1980 after anticipated electoral gains had failed to
materialise. Berlinguer died in 1984.

[See also: Andreotti; eurocommunism*; historic
compromise*]

Berlusconi, Silvio

Berlusconi, controversial politician
and businessman, leader of the Italian party Forza Italia (FI). He became
Prime Minister of Italy in 1994 and again in June 2001. Born in Milan in
1936, Berlusconi studied at the University of Milan before embarking on a
successful business career. Starting with a building and property
development business at the age of 26, his business empire came to span
commercial TV, the printed media, publishing, advertising, insurance and
financial services, retailing and football (through AC Milan football club).
In 1993 he formed the populist, right-wing political movement FI and began a
full-time political career in 1994, leading his party to win the general
elections of that year in alliance with the separatist Northern League and
far-right National Alliance. As Prime Minister of this coalition government
(called the ‘Freedom Pole’) in 1994 he broke with standard
conventions of liberal democracy. The coalition terminated through
inter-party disagreements at the end of 1994, and Berlusconi became leader
of the opposition. In 1996 he was charged with fraud, bribery of tax
officials and illegal party financing and in 1998 was sentenced to over five
years’ imprisonment for these offences. On 9 May 2000 various
convictions on charges of bribery were overturned on appeal. He became Prime
Minister again following the general election in May 2001, when his party
formed a coalition with the Northern Alliance and Northern League.

[See also: Northern Leagues*]

Bevan, Aneurin

Minister of Health 1945–51 and
Minister of Labour 1951; deputy leader of the Labour Party (1959–60).
Bevan, son of a Welsh coalminer, was born in Tredegar in 1897, and worked as
a coalminer from the age of 13. He became an active trade unionist, leading
the Welsh miners during the 1926 general strike. He was first elected to
Parliament in 1929 as an Independent Labour Party candidate. He joined the
Labour Party in 1931. He was frequently in trouble with the party leadership
because of his outspoken left-wing views, and was expelled briefly from the
party in 1939 and resigned as Minister of Labour in 1951, along with Harold
Wilson, over Chancellor of the Exchequer Gaitskell’s imposition of
charges within the National Health Service (of which Bevan had been the
principal founder in 1948). In opposition, Bevan was the standard-bearer of
the left wing in the party, and his followers acquired the name of
‘Bevanites’, seeking to reduce defence expenditure and expand
social services, though Bevan himself renounced unilateral disarmament in a
speech at the party conference of 1957. He sought the party leadership in
1955, but was defeated by Gaitskell. He died in 1960.

[See also: Gaitskell; Wilson]

Bevin, Ernest

Trade union leader and Labour Party
minister during and after the Second World War. Bevin was born in Somerset
in 1881, and became a trade union official, then creator and
General-Secretary (1921–40) of the Transport and General
Workers’ Union (a federation of numerous smaller separate trade
unions). Bevin was a leading organiser of the general strike in 1926. In
1940 Churchill invited him to join the all-party war cabinet, as minister
responsible for employment and national service. Attlee selected him as his
Foreign Secretary in the Labour government of 1945–51, during which
period he coped capably with the many challenges of post-war diplomacy and
the Cold War. He was regarded as a stalwart of the moderate centre of the
Labour Party, attracting the scorn of left-wingers as a result. Bevin died
in 1951.

[See also: Attlee; Churchill]

Bildt, Carl

Prime Minister of Sweden, 1991–94
and international statesman. Bildt was born in 1949 in Halmstad. He studied
at the University of Stockholm and was Chairman of the Confederation of
Liberal and Conservative Students 1973–74 and of the European
Democratic Students 1974–76. He worked as an adviser on policy
co-ordination for the Swedish Ministry of Economic Affairs 1976–78 and
with the cabinet office 1979–81. He joined the executive committee of
the conservative Moderate Party (MP) in 1981 and was the party’s
Chairman from 1986 to 1999. He successfully led the moderate coalition in
the elections of 1991 and replaced Social Democrat Carlsson as Prime
Minister. Sweden was renowned for the highly developed welfare state which
had been promoted under Social Democratic rule, but Bildt stood for rolling
back the state, reducing taxation and government interference in private
enterprise. He also pressed for Sweden to join the European Union (EU). He
became EU peace envoy to the former Yugoslavia in 1995 and acted as High
Representative of the International Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina
1995–97. He was Vice-Chairman of the International Democrat Union
1989–92 and Chairman 1992–99. In 1999 he was appointed Special
Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to the Balkans.

Blair, Tony

British Prime Minister since 1997 and
leader of the British Labour Party. Blair was born in Edinburgh in 1953,
studied at Oxford University and qualified as a lawyer. He entered
Parliament in 1983, and was appointed to a shadow cabinet position
responsible for employment policy by Neil Kinnock in 1988; he later became
opposition spokesman for home affairs. On the death of John Smith, he became
a candidate for the party leadership in 1994, and was elected by a large
margin. In the period between his election as leader and the general
election in 1997, Blair made radical changes to the organisation of the
party, making it a more centralised and efficiently managed organisation,
and improving dramatically its public relations performance. He also did all
he could to rid the party – which he referred to as ‘new Labour’ –
of those aspects of its policy likely to arouse distrust among uncommitted
voters; this involved the abandonment of Clause Four of the party’s
constitution, which committed the party to nationalisation of ‘the
means of production and exchange’. Labour’s overwhelming victory
(in terms of seats, though not in terms of vote-share) in the 1997 election
made Blair’s position as leader totally secure, despite continuing
criticism from a minority of socialists within the party. In government, he
has introduced a number of major constitutional changes, ranging from the
introduction of elected assemblies for Scotland and Wales and a directly
elected mayor for London to removal in stages of the hereditary peers from
the House of Lords. His government’s economic policies, implemented by
Gordon Brown as Chancellor of the Exchequer, have been conservative and have
produced large public sector surpluses. He has made statements expressing
commitment to European integration and favours eventual British membership
of the European currency project, provided economic conditions permit this.
Blair has been criticised for seeking to exercise control over the party at
the expense of democratic choice by members, in matters such as selection of
the candidate for mayor of London and leadership of the Labour Party group
in the Welsh Assembly. He has also diluted several conventional practices
connected with cabinet government, such as using cabinet meetings less than
his predecessors, and he attends the House of Commons very infrequently. He
led his party to another sweeping general election victory in 2001. He
played a significant international role in the diplomatic and military
developments following the 11 September 2001 attack by terrorists on New
York.

[See also: Kinnock; Smith; Clause Four*]

Bohley, Bärbel

Campaigner active in the citizen
movement during the fall of the GDR regime. Bohley was born in Berlin in
1945. She became an artist in the GDR. Her activities as a peace campaigner
brought her into conflict with the authorities, leading on two occasions to
her arrest and then to her expulsion from the GDR. Pressure from her
associates in West Germany led to revocation of that expulsion. During the
period of crisis for the communist regime in Autumn 1989, Bohley was among
those instrumental in founding New Forum, the best known of the new groups
which tried to provide a structure for discussion within the burgeoning
citizen movement. The pace of events in the GDR in 1989–90 tended to
force the citizen movement to the margins of the political process, and
Bohley became an opponent of the rush to reunification, arguing for a
‘third way’ which would produce a democratic but socialist form
of state within the GDR.

[See also: reunification of Germany*]

Böll, Heinrich

German author and political campaigner.
Böll was born in Cologne in 1917. After the Second World War he became
renowned for his novels and short stories, dealing with life in the Nazi
period, the war and the post-war years. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1972. Böll’s fame enabled him to publicise his
views on political matters such as the radicals’ decree and what he
regarded as the revival of militarism in the Federal Republic of Germany.
His commitment to the protection of the persecuted was demonstrated by his
welcome to Solzhenitsyn when that author left the Soviet Union in 1974.
Böll died in 1985.

[See also: nazism*; radicals’ decree*]

Bossi, Umberto

Leader of the Italian party, the
Lombardy League, then of the Northern League. Born in 1941 in Varese, Bossi
studied at Pavia University. He co-founded the Lombardy Autonomy League in
1982 and has led the party (which changed its name to Lombardy League) since
1984. He was elected as a Senator in 1987 and has been leader of the
Federation of Northern League Movements from 1989. In 1991 he played a
leading part in creating the Northern League from five regional parties, and
became its leader. He served as minister responsible for reform and
devolution in Berlusconi’s coalition government in 1994, one of five
Northern League ministers in that government. Personal and political
disagreements between Bossi and Berlusconi led to the break-up of that
coalition at the end of 1994. In 1995 he called for the secession of the
northern area of Italy to form a new state called: ‘Padania’. He
rejoined Berlusconi in the new coalition formed in 2001. In 1995 he was
sentenced to five months’ imprisonment for libel and eight
months’ for illegal party financing.

[See also: Northern Leagues*]

Brandt, Willy

Chancellor of the FRG 1969–74 and
leader of the SPD 1964–87. Brandt (born as Herbert Frahm) was born in
Lübeck in 1913. He joined the SPD in 1930, and then the Socialist
Workers’ Party – which had broken away from the SDP – in
1931. When Hitler came to power in 1933 Brandt fled to Norway, assuming the
name ‘Willy Brandt’ which he was to retain after the war, and
spent the war in that country and Sweden, studying history and law and
working as a journalist, reporting for a time on the Spanish civil war.
Having rejoined the SPD in 1947, Brandt was elected to the Bundestag in 1949
and remained a Member until 1957, then again from 1969 to 1992. He was
elected to the Berlin city legislature in 1950 and became lord mayor of West
Berlin in 1957, a post he held until 1966, including the period of the
erection of the Berlin Wall. He was chancellor-candidate of the SPD in the
federal elections of 1961 and 1965. After a period as Deputy Chancellor and
Foreign Minister in the grand coalition (1966–69), Brandt was again
chancellor-candidate of his party in 1969, and because after that election
the FDP preferred to ally with the SPD rather than the CDU, Brandt was
elected as Chancellor. He pursued a very active policy of improvement of
relations with the Soviet Union, the GDR and other East European states, in
contrast to the policies of the Adenauer government. Having survived the
first ever constructive vote of no confidence in the Bundestag in 1972,
Brandt led his party to victory in the Bundestag election later that year.
He resigned as Chancellor in 1974 following the Guillaume Affair, but
remained as party leader. He had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971
for his Ostpolitik achievements, and went on to take an active role in
several international organisations, including the Socialist International.
He served for a period as a Member of the European Parliament, and was
Chairman of the Independent Commission on International Development Issues
(the Brandt Commission) which produced reports on the North–South
divide and other ‘third world’ issues. Brandt died on 9 November
1992.

Brundtland, Gro Harlem

Norwegian Prime Minister
February–October 1981; 1986–89; 1990–96 and leading
international politician. Born in Oslo in 1939, Brundtland studied medicine at the
Universities of Oslo and Harvard. She acted as a consultant to the Norwegian
Ministry of Health and Social Affairs 1965–67, was medical officer for
Oslo city health department 1968–69 and Deputy Director of
Oslo’s school health service in 1969. Minister of the Environment
1974–79, she was deputy leader of the Labour Party 1975–81 and
leader of the parliamentary party group 1981–92. In 1981, she became
Norway’s first woman Prime Minister. During her first two periods in
office, she introduced several controversial economic reforms to reduce
Norway’s budget deficit. She became active internationally as a
leading spokeswoman on the environment, the equality of women, and
international co-operation. Her report as Chair of the UN World Commission
on the Environment and Development (1987) established the concept of
sustainable growth. She was a leading figure in the 1995 UN womens’
conference in China, and was appointed Director-General of the WHO in 1998.
A pro-European, she was unable to mobilise the majority of Norwegians to
agree to entry of the EU, but remains a popular leader.

Callaghan, James

British Prime Minister 1976–79.
Callaghan was born in Portsmouth in 1912. He became a civil servant, and was
elected to the House of Commons in 1945. He failed in his attempt to be
elected as Labour Party leader in 1963, following the death of Gaitskell. He
was appointed as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Foreign
Secretary by Wilson in the period 1964–76 (one of the few politicians
ever to hold all three of these leading ministerial positions). Following
Wilson’s resignation in 1976, Callaghan was elected as party leader
and thus became Wilson’s successor as Prime Minister. The Labour
government lost its small majority due to defeats in by-elections, and
Callaghan had to negotiate with, first, the Liberals, then the Scottish and
Welsh Nationalists and Northern Irish MPs, to retain a majority over the
Conservative opposition. He was Prime Minister during the ‘winter of
discontent’ when strikes plagued the British economy. That, and his
misjudgement concerning the timing of the general election, are generally
held to have contributed to the heavy defeat of his party in the 1979
general election. He continued as party leader and thus as leader of the
opposition only until 1980, when he was replaced by Kinnock. He became a
member of the House of Lords in 1980.

Carrero Blanco, Luis

Prime Minister of Spain
June–December 1973. Carrero Blanco was born in Santona in 1903. He
graduated from the Spanish naval academy, becoming an ensign in 1922, a
lieutenant in 1926 and later a submarine commander. He joined the staff of
the naval academy in 1934 and in 1966 was promoted to admiral. He joined the
Nationalist navy during the Spanish civil war and in 1939 became
Franco’s chief of naval operations. He was appointed Under-Secretary
to the presidency of the government in 1941 and became Vice-President of the
Parliament, the Cortes, in 1942. In 1951 he joined Franco’s cabinet
and was a trusted adviser throughout the 1950s and 1960s, serving as Deputy
Prime Minister from 1968, and was viewed as the likely successor to Franco.
He favoured changes in the regime which would restore the monarchy, though
he did not favour political reform of a democratic type. In 1973, when a new
constitution was introduced in Spain, Franco kept the presidency, but handed
his powers as
head of government to Carrero Blanco. On 20 December 1973 Carrero Blanco was
killed in a car-bomb attack, believed to have been carried out by ETA, the
Basque separatist organisation. His death made political reform in Spain
more likely.

[See also: Franco; ETA*]

Carrillo, Santiago

Leader of the Spanish Communist Party
(CP), 1960–82 and of the United Communists (UC) since 1985. Born in
1915 in Gijón, Carrillo became leader of the United Socialist Youth in
1936. Having close links to the Italian Communist Party, Carillo tried to
introduce their ideas of eurocommunism to his party, with some success. A
member of the Congress of Deputies from 1977, he was expelled from the
Communist Party in 1985, becoming President of the United Communists in the
same year, a party which became absorbed in the PSOE. He left politics in
1993, and has since published his memoirs and several other books.

[See also: eurocommunism*]

Carstens, Karl

CDU politician and President of the
Federal Republic of Germany 1979–84. Carstens was born in Bremen in
1914. He studied law and political science in Germany, France and the USA.
After service in the army in the Second World War he practised law and
served the Bremen government. He followed this with a period as a professor
combined with diplomatic service. He was appointed as State Secretary, first
in the Defence Ministry in 1967, then in the Chancellor’s Office from
1968 to 1969. He was elected to the Bundestag in 1972, and became
parliamentary leader of the Christian Democrats in 1973 until his election
as President of the Bundestag in 1976. He then served a single term as
federal President, during which he became noted for his plan to walk –
in stages and accompanied by local citizens – the length of the
Federal Republic from the Danish border to the Lake of Constance. He died in
1992.

Chaban-Delmas, Jacques

A leading Gaullist figure in post-war
French politics and Prime Minister of France 1969–72. Born Jacques
Delmas in 1915 in Paris, he studied law and politics and worked as a
journalist for the Radical Socialist economic daily
L’Information before fighting in the Italian campaign. From
1941 to 1943 he worked in the Ministry of Industrial Production and joined
the resistance, afterwards adopting ‘Chaban’, his resistance
pseudonym, as part of his surname. He became the national military delegate
of de Gaulle’s provisional government and was closely involved in the
liberation of Paris. After a brief association with the Radical Party, in
1947 he joined the Gaullist Rassemblement du Peuple Français (RPF). He
served as Minister of Public Works, Transport and Tourism; Minister of State
and Defence Minister. Following the upheavals of 1968, in 1969 Pompidou
appointed Chaban-Delmas as Prime Minister to try to stabilise the situation.
Chaban-Delmas formed a government which included two members of the social
democratic opposition. He promised his government would create a ‘new
society’ in France, setting out to reduce the inequalities and
rigidity of French society through progressive social measures including
more effective collective bargaining and the liberalisation of government,
particularly in public sector broadcasting. However, Chaban-Delmas’
initiative failed to integrate the more hard-line Gaullists and the parties
of the left. Pompidou increasingly came to see Chaban-Delmas as
irresponsible and in danger of alienating conservative support for the party.
Relations between President and Prime Minister deteriorated and in 1972
Pompidou was furious when Chaban-Delmas called (and won) a parliamentary
vote of confidence on his own initiative. Six weeks later, the President
dismissed him. Chaban-Delmas at first appeared to be consolidating his
position as a future leader of the Gaullist party, but in the presidential
election of 1974 he lost heavily to his rival, Giscard d’Estaing, and
withdrew to his provincial stronghold of Bordeaux, allowing Chirac to take
over leadership of the Gaullists. He continued to figure large in
parliamentary politics (he was three times President of the National
Assembly), but did not regain a party leadership role.

Chirac, Jacques

Prime Minister of France 1974–76;
1986–88 and President of France 1995–. Chirac was born in 1932
in Paris and studied at the Paris Institute of Political Studies. After
active service in Algeria, he graduated from the National College of
Administration in 1959. During the early part of his political career,
Chirac was appointed to Prime Minister Pompidou’s staff and forged
close links with him. His ministerial career spanned employment
(1967–68); finance (1968–71); relations with Parliament (at
which he was not judged a success, having little interest in Parliament)
(1971–72); agriculture (1972–73; 1973–74) and the interior
(1974). He was instrumental in Giscard d’Estaing’s nomination as
Gaullist presidential candidate in 1974 and was rewarded by Giscard with the
post of Prime Minister. Giscard and Chirac soon clashed personally and over
policy and in 1976, following Giscard’s refusal to dissolve the
Parliament and hold fresh elections, Chirac resigned. Chirac then became
party leader of the new Gaullist Rassemblement pour la Republique (RPR), a
post which he held until 1994. He was elected mayor of Paris
(1977–95), an important power base. After his resignation as Prime
Minister, Chirac worked to undermine Giscard. In the presidential elections
of 1981, he split the right by standing against Giscard, consolidating his
reputation for being divisive and ambitious. During Mitterrand’s first
presidency, Chirac was effectively leader of the opposition in France. When
the right won a narrow majority in the parliamentary elections of 1986,
Mitterrand called on Chirac to form a ‘cohabitation’ government
to work in tandem with his Socialist presidency. France’s poor
economic performance during Chirac’s premiership (1986–88)
hampered him in the presidential race of 1988, again won by Mitterrand.
Chirac finally succeeded in his ambition to become President in 1995. He
resumed a Gaullist foreign policy in launching nuclear testing at Mururoa
and through adopting a Eurosceptic stance. His economic policy had two
central but conflicting aims: to fight unemployment and to reduce the budget
deficit. Chirac’s popularity plummetted during his first year as
President, but he was able to shift much of the blame for his policies onto
his Prime Minister, Juppé. He made a political blunder by calling an
early general election, which the Socialists won, forcing Chirac to govern
in cohabitation with Prime Minister Jospin.

Churchill, Winston

British Prime Minister 1940–45
and 1951–55. Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace in 1874. He took up
a military career after training at Sandhurst military college. He was
elected to Parliament as a Conservative in 1900, but switched to the Liberal Party in
1906, and held various ministerial posts, including Home Secretary and First
Lord of the Admiralty, a post he resigned following the failed Dardanelles
military landings in 1915. Churchill served in the army in France until, in
1917, Lloyd George appointed him Minister for Munitions. Changing back to
the Conservatives in 1924, Churchill was Chancellor of the Exchequer
1924–29. His critical attitude towards the Baldwin and Chamberlain
governments’ appeasement policies towards European dictators aroused
hostility towards him among the more orthodox members of his party, but when
the Second World War commenced, he accepted office as First Lord of the
Admiralty again. The downfall of Chamberlain in 1940 left the way open for
Churchill to become Prime Minister and lead an all-party national
government. After the war, this government broke up, and in the general
election of 1945 Churchill, despite the accolades given him for his
leadership in the war, was heavily defeated by the Labour Party. He returned
as Prime Minister in 1951, but was by then ageing and unwell. He was
persuaded to retire in 1955. He remained an MP until 1964. He was awarded
the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953, and was made a Knight of the Garter
in that same year. On his death in 1965 he was given a state funeral.

Ciampi, Carlo

Italian Prime Minister 1993–94.
Born in Livorno in 1920, Ciampi studied at the University of Pisa, and,
after serving with the Italian army 1941–44, joined the Bank of Italy
in 1946 and pursued a career as a research economist. He was Governor of the
Bank of Italy 1979–93, after which he was asked to form a
‘government of technocrats’ in order to restore confidence in
the collapsing parliamentary institutions while constitutional reform was
pursued. After his term as Prime Minister he served as Minister of the
Treasury and the Budget in the d’Alema government (1996–98).
From 1998 until 1999 he was Chairman of the IMF Interim Committee and has
been a member of numerous economic institutions. In 1999 he was elected
President of Italy.

[See also: Tangentopoli*]

Constantine II of Greece

Deposed King of Greece. Born in 1940
near Athens, Constantine studied law at Athens University and received
military training 1956–58. He won a gold medal in the Rome 1960
Olympic Games for yachting. When his father King Paul I died in March 1964,
he succeeded to the throne. Constantine had a tense relationship with the
left-wing Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou and dismissed him in 1965. This
launched a period of civil disorder and a vacuum in government culminating
in a military coup on 21 April 1967. Constantine had little choice but to
accept the military dictatorship which was imposed after the coup. He called
for a return to a democratic civil regime, but, when an attempt in 1967 to
topple the military government failed, he was forced to leave Greece for
Rome, then London. Constantine was formally deposed on 1 June 1973. The
abolition of the Greek monarchy was confirmed by popular referendum in
December 1974. In 1994 Constantine was deprived of his Greek citizenship and
the property he owned in Greece was nationalised.

[See also: Papandreou; Colonels’ coup (Greece)*]

Cosgrave, Liam

Leader of the Irish Fine Gael (FG)
party 1965–77; Prime Minister of Ireland 1973–77. Cosgrave was
born in 1920 in Templeogue, County Dublin. His father was William T.
Cosgrave, President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State 1922–32. Liam
Cosgrave studied in Dublin and Kings Inns and was called to the Bar in 1943,
becoming a Senior Counsel in 1958. In 1943 he was elected to Parliament as a
representative of the FG. He acted as Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime
Minister and to the Minister for Industry and Commerce 1948–51. In
1956, as Minister for External Affairs, he led the first Irish delegation to
the United Nations General Assembly. In 1965 he was elected leader of the FG
and in 1973 became Prime Minister at the head of an FG–Labour
coalition. He was respected as a moderate leader who tried to ease tensions
between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, although his attempt
to promote compromise through the Sunningdale Agreement of December 1973 met
with little success. In 1977 the National Coalition government was defeated
by the Fianna Fail (FF) and Cosgrave stepped down both as Prime Minister and
as leader of the FG. He retired from politics in 1981.

Cossiga, Francesco

Prime Minister of Italy 1979–80;
President of Italy 1985–92. Cossiga was born in 1928 in Sassari,
Sardinia, and received a law degree from Sassari University in 1948. He
joined the Christian Democrats (DC) in 1945, becoming a provincial secretary
1956–58 and a member of the party’s national council
1956–85. In 1958 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. He was
Under-Secretary of State for Defence 1966–70 and Minister for Public
Administration 1974–76. As Minister of the Interior 1976–78 in
the cabinet of Aldo Moro he had to deal with an upsurge in urban violence
and political terrorism. In April 1977, his offices were bombed by radicals.
In March 1978 Cossiga took charge of the investigation into the kidnapping
of Aldo Moro. He refused to negotiate with the terrorists and when Moro was
murdered in May 1978, Cossiga resigned. In 1979 he agreed to form a
coalition government and immediately introduced legislation to curb
terrorism. He resigned as Prime Minister in March 1980 in the face of a vote
of no confidence, but immediately formed another coalition government of
Christian Democrats and Socialists. He resigned again in October 1980 when
his economic plan to support the value of the lira was defeated in
Parliament. He was President of the Italian Senate 1983–85 before
being elected President of the Republic 1985–92. He was implicated in
the corruption crisis which engulfed the Italian political elite in the
early 1990s and resigned early in 1992.

[See also: Moro; Tangentopoli*; terrorism*]

Coty, René

As President of the Fourth French
Republic 1954–59, Coty guided the peaceful transition between the
Fourth and the Fifth Republics. Coty was born in Le Havre in 1882 and
studied law at the University of Caen. He was elected to the National
Assembly in 1923, sitting with the left Republican party group. From 1935 to
1940 he was a member of the Senate, and was amongst those who supported the
transfer of powers to Pétain. After the Second World War he led the
Independent party group in the National Assembly and was Minister for
Reconstruction and Town Planning 1947–48. In the presidential election
of 1953, it took seven days of negotiations and thirteen ballots before
Coty, an outsider who entered the field only on the eleventh ballot, emerged
as President. Aware of his shaky mandate, he worked to restore the dignity
and unity of the parliamentary institutions, exercising his powers with
restraint and adopting a conciliatory stance towards the Communist Party. In
1958, when France faced a crisis over Algerian independence and the threat
of military intervention, Coty helped to secure the transition to the Fifth
Republic. He threatened to resign, potentially leaving the way open for a
Popular Front government, unless de Gaulle was allowed to introduce the new
republic. Once the Fifth Republic was inaugurated, Coty stepped down as
President in favour of de Gaulle. Coty died on 22 November 1962.

[See also: de Gaulle; Algerian conflict*; Vichy regime*]

Craxi, ‘Bettino’ (Benedetto)

Prime Minister of Italy 1983–87
and leader of the Italian Socialist Party. Born in 1934 in Milan, Craxi
joined the Italian Socialist Youth Movement in the early 1950s and became
active in the Socialist Party. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in
1968. He became Deputy Secretary of his party in 1970, and General Secretary
in 1976 and succeeded in integrating the various factions of the party. In
1983 he became the first Socialist Italian Prime Minister. His
government’s austerity programme was met with a series of strikes. In
October 1985, the Italian liner the Achille Lauro was hijacked by
Palestinian terrorists. Craxi’s government negotiated with the
terrorists through the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and released the
suspected organiser of the hijacking. These events caused a government
crisis, but Craxi was able to stay in power until 1987. After his
resignation he remained sufficiently powerful to force the resignation of
several subsequent governments. He resigned as leader of the Socialist Party
in February 1993 following allegations of political corruption. He fled to
Tunisia and in 1994 he was sentenced in his absence to eight and a half
years’ imprisonment for having accepted 7 billion lire from the
corrupt Milanese Banco Ambrosiano for the Socialist Party. He died in
January 2000.

[See also: Tangentopoli*]

Cresson, Edith

First woman Prime Minister of France
1991–92. Born in Boulogne-sur-Seine in 1934, Cresson graduated from a
prestigious Paris business school and took a doctorate in demography before
beginning a career in economic investment and marketing. She was national
secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) 1974–79 and was also responsible
for its youth section. She was elected to the European Parliament in 1979
and to the National Assembly in 1981. She was a member of all three Mauroy
cabinets: Minister for Agriculture 1981–83; Foreign Trade and Tourism
1983–84; and Industrial Restructuring and Foreign Trade 1984–86.
From 1988 to 1990 she was Minister for European Affairs, famously attacking
Mrs Thatcher by declaring that the EC was ‘more than a glorified
grocer’s shop’. As Prime Minister 1991–92 she often caused
offence with her rash comments and failed to promote the popularity of the
PS. When the party lost support in the March 1992 parliamentary elections,
she stood down. From 1994 to 1999 she was EU Commissioner for Science,
Research and Development. She was deeply implicated in the scandal which
brought down the commission team in 1995.

[See also: Mauroy]

Debré, Michel

Prime Minister of France 1959–62
and designer of the constitution of the Fifth French Republic. Debré
was born in Paris in 1912. After studying law, he served as an officer in
the Second World War, became a prisoner of war but escaped in 1940 and fled
to England. Here he worked closely with de Gaulle’s Free French
resistance movement. He became a Senator in the Fourth Republic, and, when
de Gaulle accepted the call to introduce a new constitution in 1958,
Debré played a leading role in drafting that constitution. After serving as Prime
Minister, he later became Foreign Minister and Defence Minister. In 1981 he
was a candidate for the presidency, but received only about 1 per cent of
the vote on the first round of balloting.

[See also: de Gaulle; resistance groups*]

Delors, Jacques

French christian democrat/socialist and
President of the EC/EU Commission 1985–95. Delors was born in 1925 in
Paris, where he studied law and banking before joining the Bank of France in
1944. He acted as consultant in social and economic affairs in the
preparation of the Fifth Plan (1962–69), a position he gained partly
through his ties with the Catholic union, the CFTC. He associated briefly
with the Mouvement Républicain Populaire and with socialist splinter
groups before leading the Catholic Citoyen 60 club. After the social
upheaval of May 1968, his vision of a less authoritarian, consensus-led mode
of conducting industrial relations became more popular. In 1969, Prime
Minister Chaban-Delmas, keen to promote a ‘new society’ in
France, appointed Delors as his adviser on social affairs. In 1974, Delors
joined the Socialist Party (PS) and became a supporter of Mitterrand. When
Mitterrand became President in 1981, Delors was appointed Minister of
Finance. He kept France in the European Monetary System (EMS), and, in the
Spring of 1982, implemented an austerity programme aimed at curbing
consumption to reduce the trade deficit. A second, more stringent phase
adopted in March 1983 curtailed collective bargaining, particularly in the
public sector. Although the government proved unpopular, Delors’
performance was approved by the financial community. First elected MEP in
1979, Delors became President of the EC Commission in 1985. As President, he
engineered major changes including a restructuring of the EC’s
finances and agricultural policy and significant constitutional and
institutional reform. Encouraged by a proactive Franco-German leadership
(Mitterrand and Kohl), he moved the EC towards further integration. His
efforts were consolidated in the Single European Act (SEA) and the Treaty on
European Union (TEU or Maastricht Treaty). In addition to various EU posts,
he has acted as special adviser on economic and social affairs to the OECD
since 1999.

Dewar, Donald

First Minister (Prime Minister) of the
Scottish Executive 1999–2000. Dewar was born in Glasgow in 1937. He
studied history and law at Glasgow University. Dewar was first elected as a
Labour Party MP to the House of Commons in 1966, but was defeated in the
1970 general election. He returned as an MP in 1978, and became the
Opposition spokesman on Scottish affairs in 1983, a post he held until 1992.
He became a strong supporter of the idea of a devolved Parliament for
Scotland, campaigning in favour of devolution in the unsuccessful 1979
referendum, supporting the Scottish Constitutional Convention created in
1988 which investigated ways and means of bringing about a Scottish
Parliament, and managing the campaign in 1997 which produced an overwhelming
majority in a referendum favouring a Scottish Parliament. When that
Parliament was elected in 1999, Dewar, as leader of the largest
parliamentary party group, became the First Minister and formed a coalition
government with the Liberal Democrats. In 2000 he had treatment for a heart
condition, and died in October 2000.

Dini, Lamberto

Leading Italian economist and
‘technocratic’ Prime Minister of Italy 1995–96. Dini was
born in 1931 in Florence and studied at the Universities of Florence,
Minnesota and Michigan. He became an economist with the IMF in Washington
and took various consultancy posts before joining the Bank of Italy, first,
in 1979, as Assistant General Manager, then as General Manager. He was a
member of the Monetary Committee of the EU. He was Minister of the Treasury
1994–95, Prime Minister 1995–96 and Minister of Foreign Affairs
1996–2000. In spite of a bitterly divided Parliament in the wake of
Berlusconi’s failed government of 1994, Dini was able to find
majorities to pass a new budget in March 1995 and a significant pension
reform to introduce a new system of benefits by 2008. However, he was not
able to pass anti-cartel laws directed against Berlusconi’s control of
the media: the measure was rejected by referendum by 57 per cent of the
vote. He resigned as Prime Minister under growing pressure from the
established parties, but formed a new party: the centrist Italian Renewal
Party, shortly before the 1996 general election, and became a prominent
member of Prodi’s ‘Olive Tree’ coalition government in
1996.

[See also: Berlusconi; Prodi; Tangentopoli*]

Duncan Smith, Iain

Leader of the Conservative Party since
2001. Duncan Smith was born in Edinburgh in 1954 and educated at Sandhurst,
following which he became an army officer, then a business executive. He was
first elected to the House of Commons in 1992. He established a reputation
within the party for his outspoken opposition to further developments in
European integration, and especially British entry into the single European
currency scheme. He was appointed by Hague in 1997 as opposition spokesman
for social security policy. In the leadership election in 2001, he rather
surprisingly obtained more votes from Conservative MPs than Portillo, and
competed successfully against Clarke in the membership ballot among the top
two contenders.

[See also: Hague]

Dutschke, Rudi

Leading figure in the German student
movement, especially in the late 1960s. Dutschke was born in Schönefeld
near Luckenwalde (south of Berlin) in 1940. As a conscientious objector in
the GDR he was excluded from higher education, so moved to West Berlin to
study sociology. As a leading member of the left-wing Socialist German
Student Association (SDS), he organised demonstrations in the late 1960s,
including a protest demonstration against the visit of the Shah of Iran in
1967, against the grand coalition and its policies and against what the SDS
perceived to be undemocratic dominance in universities and other
institutions by elites. In April 1968 Dutschke was shot by an assassin, and
for a time his life was in danger. He made a recovery, eventually finding
employment at Aarhus University (Denmark). He supported the founding of the
Green Party in Germany. Dutschke died in 1979 from the effects of his
gunshot injuries.

[See also: extra-parliamentary opposition*]

Eanes, General António

An army officer, General Eanes was
President of Portugal 1976–86. Eanes was born in 1935 in Alcains. He
studied psychology and law before military training in 1953. He was
commissioned to Portuguese India 1958–60; Mozambique 1962–64,
1966–67; Portuguese Guinea 1969–73; and Angola 1973–74. He became
a General in 1978. After the April Revolution he was named to the first
‘Ad hoc’ Committee for mass media in June 1974 and subsequently
to other media posts, but resigned after accusations of ‘probable
implication’ in the abortive counter-coup of March 1975. He was later
cleared of this charge. He was a member of the Military Committee of the
Council of the Revolution and was responsible for the Constitutional Law
approved in December 1975. In addition to the presidency, Eanes was
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Force 1976–80, 1980–81. After
his presidency, he led the Portuguese Democratic Renewal Party
1986–87.

Eden, Anthony

British Prime Minister and Conservative
Party leader 1955–57. Eden was born in 1897 in Durham. After studying
at Oxford, he was awarded the Military Cross during his service in the First
World War. He was first elected to the House of Commons in 1923. After
holding junior ministerial posts, he was appointed Foreign Secretary in
1935. Disagreements with Prime Minister Chamberlain, especially concerning
the need actively to resist aggression by Italy in Abyssinia, caused Eden to
resign from the cabinet in 1938. Eden became Dominions Secretary in
Chamberlain’s government when the Second World War commenced in 1939.
Churchill appointed him in 1940 as Secretary of State for War, then as
Foreign Secretary, which involved Eden closely in the war-time conferences
with the USA and USSR. When Churchill returned as Prime Minister in 1951,
Eden became Foreign Secretary for the third time, and was the recognised
successor-in-waiting to the aged and ailing Churchill. He became Prime
Minister when Churchill resigned in 1955, but in 1956 became embroiled in
the Suez crisis, which led to his humiliation as Prime Minister and to
divisions within his party. He resigned as Prime Minister on grounds of
ill-health in January 1957. He became Earl of Avon in 1961. He died in
1977.

[See also: Churchill; Suez crisis*]

Eichmann, Karl Adolf

Nazi war criminal responsible for
administration of the Holocaust. Eichmann was born in Solingen in 1906. He
joined the Nazi Party in 1932 and was recruited to the SS (state security
service). As a high-level bureaucrat with experience in managing anti-Jewish
policies in Vienna, he attended the Wannsee conference which planned the
so-called ‘final solution’ and was in charge of administration
of this policy of eliminating Jews in Europe by murder in concentration
camps. Escaping from American custody after the war, he fled to Argentina,
but a group of so-called ‘Nazi hunters’ located his residence
there in 1960 and he was kidnapped by Israeli security agents, transported
to Israel and put on trial. Found guilty of crimes against the Jewish
people, he was sentenced to death and executed in 1962.

[See also: anti-Semitism*; final solution*; Holocaust*;
nazism*]

Engholm, Björn

Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein,
1988–93 and leader of the West German Social Democratic Party
1991–93. Engholm was born in Lübeck in 1939. He had been a Member
of the Bundestag, and, briefly, a minister in Helmut Schmidt’s
coalition government. Engholm was a popular politician, who seemed set to
become chancellor-candidate for the SPD for the 1994 Bundestag election.
However, his admission that he had given false evidence to an inquiry into
the Barschel Affair led to his resignation from party and public office in
1993. He was replaced as SPD leader by Rudolf Scharping.

[See also: Scharping; Schmidt; Barschel Affair*]

Eppelmann, Rainer

Dissident and leading eastern German
politician during German reunification (1989–90). Eppelmann was born
in Berlin in 1943. After his trade apprenticeship he was jailed as a
conscientious objector. He studied theology and became a leading pacifist
and critic of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). As a pastor, he housed
meetings for opponents of the regime in his East Berlin church. He was
co-founder of the political movement: Democratic Renewal (Demokratische
Aufbruch) and represented it at the Round Table talks on constitutional and
political reform which took place in late 1989 and early 1990 under the
Modrow government. From February 1990 he was Minister without Portfolio in
the Modrow cabinet. When the leader of Democratic Renewal, Wolfgang Schnur,
resigned over alleged links with the GDR state security police (Stasi), he
was replaced by Eppelmann. Eppelmann was Minister for Disarmament and
Defence in the de Maizière cabinet in 1990 following the parliamentary
elections. He became a member of the CDU when Democratic Renewal was merged
with the CDU shortly before reunification, and took a leading role in the
CDU employees’ organisation. He chaired committees of inquiry into
past events in the GDR. He has been a Member of the Bundestag since
1990.

Erhard, Ludwig

Chancellor of the Federal Republic of
Germany 1963–66. Erhard was born in 1897 in Fürth (Bavaria).
Prior to and during the Second World War he directed an economics research
institute. In 1944 he produced a scheme for the economic recovery of
post-war Germany based on the notion of a social market economy, a
combination of the free market and welfare state provisions, which guided
West German economic policy after the war. After the war he was appointed as
Professor of Economics at Munich University, served as Bavarian Minister for
Industry in 1945–46 and became Economic Director in the Bizone
Economic Council Executive in 1948. In this post he implemented the currency
reform of 1948, designed to produce a stable currency and eliminate the
black market in the western zones of occupation. He was elected to the
Bundestag in 1949, and became Minister of Economics in Adenauer’s
government, serving in that post until he succeeded Adenauer as Federal
Chancellor in 1963. His skills as an economist and administrator, though
earning him the title of ‘Father of the Economic Miracle’, did
not benefit him in election campaigns, and the failure of the CDU–CSU
to do as well as expected in the 1965 Bundestag election left Erhard in a
vulnerable position. When the Free Democrats forced a coalition crisis in
1966 over taxation policy, Erhard was forced to resign as Chancellor, and
was replaced by Kiesinger. Erhard succeeded Adenauer briefly as leader of
the Christian Democratic Union (1966–67). Erhard died in 1977.

Erlander, Tage

Prime Minister of Sweden 1946–69.
Erlander was born in Ransäter in 1901. He entered the Swedish
Parliament (Riksdag) in 1933 as a Social Democrat, and rapidly rose to become a member of
the cabinet in 1944. In 1946 he was elected as party leader and became Prime
Minister. His main achievement was the development of Sweden’s welfare
state system. He emphasised consensus in his relations with other parties,
which enabled many of his policies to be adopted without much political
controversy. He defended the policy of neutrality for Sweden, but combined
this with internationalism expressed through generous foreign aid and
Swedish membership in the European Free Trade Association.

Fabius, Laurent

Prime Minister of France 1984–86,
the youngest to hold this office since Decazes in 1815. Fabius was born in
Paris in 1946 and studied there at the Institute of Political Studies and at
the National College of Administration. In 1973 he joined the Council of
State, France’s highest administrative tribunal, becoming Master of
Petitions in 1981. In 1974 he joined the Socialist Party (PS) and rose
rapidly from economic adviser to Mitterrand in 1975 to First Secretary of
the party, and, in 1976, Director of Mitterrand’s advisory staff.
Together with Jospin, Fabius worked to secure Mitterrand’s power base
within the party. In 1978, Fabius became PS parliamentary spokesman on
budgetary matters, and, in 1981, Minister for the Budget. His reflationary
budget of 1982 aimed to implement the series of social and economic reforms
proposed by the Socialist–Communist coalition. In March 1983, Fabius
was promoted to the flagship ‘superministry’ of Research,
Industry and Telecommunications, intended to mastermind France’s
‘third industrial revolution’. When Mauroy resigned as Prime
Minister in 1984, Mitterrand replaced him with Fabius, who introduced the
surprisingly successful austerity programme. Popular with the public, Fabius
clashed with rivals in the party, and also with Mitterrand. He was
criticised for his pragmatism and viewed as not being a true socialist: he
was dubbed the ‘Giscard of the left’. Lacking an independent
political power base, Fabius lost public profile when the right regained the
government in 1986. He failed to gain the leadership of the PS during the
election year of 1988 and his selection as President of the National
Assembly in that year was understood as a consolation prize. He was briefly
First Secretary of the PS (1992–93) and led the PS party group in the
National Assembly 1995–97.

[See also: Giscard d’Estaing; Jospin; Mauroy;
Mitterrand]

Fini, Gianfranco

Leader of the right-wing National
Alliance party in Italy, and Deputy Prime Minister in Berlusconi’s
government. Fini was born in Bologna in 1952, and studied education and
psychology at university. He played a leading role in Italy’s
neo-fascist youth group (the Fronte della Gioventú) and was elected to
Parliament for the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI) in 1983. He
became leader of that party in 1987, but, because of problems affecting that
party, decided to form a new party in 1994: the National Alliance (AN),
which took a more moderate and orthodox political stance than had the MSI.
That same year the AN joined in Berlusconi’s coalition government, and
it also became a partner in Berlusconi’s 2001 coalition
government.

[See also: Berlusconi]

Finnbogadóttir, Vigdís

President of Iceland 1980–96.
Finnbogadóttir was born in 1930 in Reykjavik and studied at the
Universities of Iceland, Grenoble and the Sorbonne before becoming a French
teacher. She became involved in the Icelandic tourist industry, was
Director of the Reykjavik Theatre Company 1972–80 and taught French
drama at the University of Iceland. In politics, she was first a Member,
then Chair, of the Advisory Committee on Cultural Affairs in the Nordic
countries 1976–80 before becoming President of Iceland
1980–96.

Fischer, Joschka

Foreign Minister of Germany, and
leading personality in the Green Party. Fischer was born in Gerabronn in
1948. He was one of the more notorious radicals of the ‘1968
movement’. He joined the Green Party in 1982, as it was first
developing into a national political force. In 1985 he became Minister for
the Environment in the Hesse Land government, in what was the first Land
coalition government in which the Green Party had participated. He retained
that office until 1987, and was again Minister for the Environment in the
second SPD–Green Party coalition in Hesse, from 1991 to 1994. He had
been a Member of the Bundestag 1983–85, and was again elected to the
Bundestag in 1994. In the period 1987–94 he was a Member of the Hesse
Land Parliament. Fischer was always seen to be a supporter of a more
pragmatic policy for the Green Party: one of the ‘Realos’. He
was the most widely recognised personality in that party, certainly since
the death of Petra Kelly. When the SPD formed a governing coalition after
the 1998 Bundestag election, Fischer became Foreign Minister and Deputy
Chancellor. His policies whilst in office have sometimes met with strong
disapproval from elements within his own party, such as his support for
German military participation in peacekeeping in areas of the former
Yugoslavia. In 2001 allegations concerning his radical activities in the
early 1970s cast a shadow over his position in the Schröder
government.

[See also: Kelly; Realos and Fundis*]

Fitzgerald, Garret

Leading Irish and EU politician and
economist, leader of the Fine Gael (FG) party 1977–87 and Prime
Minister of Ireland 1981–82, 1982–87. Fitzgerald was born in
1926 in Dublin, where he graduated in law from University College. From 1947
to 1958 he worked as a manager for Aer Lingus before taking up posts in
political economy at Dublin University 1958–73. He was a member of the
Irish Senate (Seanad Éireann) 1965–69, then of the lower house
(Dáil Éireann) for Dublin South-East 1969–92. He was
Minister for Foreign Affairs 1973–77 before first becoming Prime
Minister (Taoiseach) in 1981. During this period in office he set up an
Inter-Governmental Council on Northern Ireland with the UK Prime Minister,
Margaret Thatcher. His coalition government with the Labour Party fell when
its budget was defeated in 1982, and fresh elections gave power to the
opposition, the Fianna Fail (FF). Fitzgerald led the FG from 1977 to 1987.
He again became Prime Minister in December 1982. On 15 November 1985 he
signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement with Thatcher. This gave the Republic a
consultative role in Northern Ireland for the first time, while recognising
the right of the majority in Northern Ireland to decide the political
allegiance of the province. With respect to domestic policy, Fitzgerald
failed to reduce government spending or bring down the rate of unemployment
and barely survived a no-confidence motion in October 1986. His government
collapsed, again over the budget, in January 1987, and Fitzgerald promptly
resigned from the leadership of FG. He has held numerous national and
international positions relating to economics and in association with the
EU. While Minister for Foreign Affairs, he was President of the Council of
Ministers of the EEC January–June 1975. He was a leading figure in the
European
People’s Party of the European Parliament. He has been active as a
political journalist, working for the BBC, the Financial Times,
The Economist and the Irish Times.

[See also: Thatcher]

Foot, Michael

Leader of the British Labour Party
1980–83. Foot was born in Plymouth in 1913. Educated at Oxford
University, he became a journalist noted for his left-wing views. He was
first elected to the House of Commons in 1960 and became a minister in the
1974 Wilson government. He was leader of the House of Commons 1976–79.
He was elected deputy leader of the Labour Party in 1976, and then leader in
succession to Callaghan in 1980. His left-wing views were blamed for the
heavy defeat of the Labour Party in the 1983 general election, after which
Foot resigned as party leader. He has always been associated with pacifist
causes, in particular the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

[See also: Callaghan; Wilson; Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament*]

Fraga Iribarne, Manuel

Leader of the former Spanish party
Alianza Popular (AP) (now Partido Popular (PP)) 1979–86, 1989–90
and a leading writer and diplomat. Fraga was born in 1922 in Villalba, Lugo
and studied at the Universities of Santiago and Madrid before becoming a
Professor at the Universities of Valencia (1945) and Madrid (1948). He was
active in the diplomatic service from 1945. From 1951 to 1961 he held
various public posts related to culture, education and political studies. He
was Minister of Information and Tourism 1962–69 and also
Secretary-General of the cabinet 1967–69. He was Ambassador to the UK
1973–75. After Franco’s death, Fraga became Minister for the
Interior and Deputy Prime Minister 1975–76. In 1976 he formed the AP
which he led for much of the 1980s. He was a Member of the European
Parliament 1987–89 and was involved in regional politics in Galicia,
becoming the President of the region in 1990 (and re-elected to that post in
1993, 1997 and 2000). During the Franco regime he was a supporter of partial
liberalisation, both of the ruling party and of the regime. He removed
aspects of censorship of the press by legislation in 1966, for instance.
However, he was too closely linked to Franco’s regime to be a key
figure in the transition to democracy in Spain.

Franco, Francisco

Military leader of Spain from the
civil war until his death in 1975. Franco was born in Galicia in 1892. He
entered upon a military career, and became Chief of Staff in 1935. His overt
opposition to the democratic regime in Spain at the time led to his posting
as military commander in the Canary Islands, and Franco’s decision in
1936 to lead a military uprising against the socialist government. This led
to the Spanish civil war, which ended in a victory for the military forces
in 1939. He then ruled Spain as a dictatorship in which he was head of state
and Prime Minister, with the aid of his Falange party. Other parties were
prohibited, democratic rights were abolished, regional identity was
suppressed and a corporate form of economic regulation introduced. Franco
was regarded by some as fascist and he benefited during the civil war from
military aid sent by the Nazi government. Nevertheless, he refused to join
in the Second World War, maintaining Spanish neutrality. Before his death,
Franco arranged that the monarchy should be restored and that Juan Carlos
should succeed him as head of state, in the hope that his style of regime would persist
after his death.

[See also: Juan Carlos, King; Spanish civil war*]

Gaitskell, Hugh

Leader of the British Labour Party
1955–63. Gaitskell was born in London in 1906. He studied at Oxford
University and then became a lecturer in economics. He was elected to the
House of Commons in 1945 and held a number of ministerial positions in the
Attlee governments, becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1950. His
decision to introduce charges for certain National Health Service provisions
led to a bitter feud with Bevan (who resigned from the government on this
issue) and the left wing of the party, and to criticism of Gaitskell’s
revisionism. In 1955 Gaitskell defeated Bevan in the election for the party
leadership. He tried to modify Labour’s commitment to nationalisation,
and strongly opposed attempts to impose unilateral nuclear disarmament as
party policy. He died in 1963.

[See also: Bevan]

de Gasperi, Alcide

Prime Minister of Italy 1945–53
during the reconstruction period after the Second World War. De Gasperi was
born in 1881 in Pieve Tesino in Trentino. He studied at the University of
Vienna before becoming editor of the newspaper Nuovo Trentino. He was
elected to the Austrian Parliament in 1911 as a representative of the
Italian Irredentist movement. After the union of his province with Italy, he
was elected to the Italian Parliament in 1921. An opponent of
Mussolini’s dictatorship, he was arrested in 1926 and his newspaper
was banned. He was jailed for 16 months. During the Second World War, de
Gasperi was an active member of the Italian resistance. When Mussolini fell,
de Gasperi joined the Bonomi government of 1944, becoming Foreign Minister
in December. He was elected leader of the newly founded Christian Democrats
(DC) and in 1945 became Prime Minister, introducing a period of DC
participation in government which was to last until the party’s
dissolution in 1994. As Prime Minister, de Gasperi committed the Italian
Republic to NATO, promoted links with the USA, established a fairly liberal
economic policy and remained staunchly anti-communist. He grew increasingly
committed to the goal of European integration. During his period in office,
Italy recovered its international standing and the economy improved. After
losing a vote of confidence in June 1953, de Gasperi stepped down. He
resigned as leader of the DC in June 1954 and died on 19 August 1954.

[See also: Mussolini; resistance groups*]

de Gaulle, Charles

Leader of the Free French resistance
during the Second World War and President of France 1958–69. De Gaulle
was born in Lille in 1890. He made a career in the army, and was a
prisoner-of-war in the First World War. When France was defeated in 1940 by
the German military, de Gaulle, at the time a General with a post in the
Ministry of Defence, fled to London and set up a committee of the Free
French to continue resistance to the Germans. Following the liberation of
France in 1944–45, de Gaulle became head of the provisional
government, until the Fourth Republic was established in 1946, following a
referendum. He removed himself from an active role in national politics, but
in 1958, as a result of the growing crisis in Algeria and the lack of
support for the Fourth Republic, he was invited to become Prime Minister
with the mandate to produce a new constitution. He became the first President of
the new Fifth Republic, introduced direct election for the presidency and
was re-elected in 1965 under this new system. He successfully managed the
Algerian crisis, eventually ensuring that Algeria became independent. He
played an active part in shaping the politics of European integration,
though always with a view to protecting the interests of France. In
particular, he negotiated the Franco-German treaty with Adenauer which was
signed in 1963 and twice exercised a veto against the entry of the United
Kingdom into the European Economic Community. He withdrew France from
various aspects of NATO membership in 1966. The events surrounding the
student and left-wing demonstrations in 1968 seemed to weaken his position,
though he agreed to a range of reforms in an effort to meet popular demands.
In 1969 de Gaulle’s plans for regional reform were defeated in a
referendum which was perceived as a test of confidence in his leadership,
and he resigned. He died in 1970.

Genscher, Hans-Dietrich

Foreign Minister of the German Federal
Republic 1974–92 and leader of the Free Democratic Party (FDP)
1974–85. Genscher was born near Halle, in what later became the German
Democratic Republic, in 1927. He studied law at the Universities of Halle
and Leipzig, then migrated to the Federal Republic in 1952, the year in
which he joined the FDP. He was appointed to the staff of the FDP
parliamentary party in the Bundestag in 1956, becoming business manager of
that parliamentary party in 1959, and business manager of the FDP in 1962.
He was first elected to the Bundestag in 1965. He was elected as a deputy
leader of his party in 1968. He served as Minister of the Interior in the
Brandt government from 1969 to 1974. The resignation in 1974 of the
incumbent Foreign Minister and party leader, Scheel, allowed Genscher to
assume both those positions. Genscher played a leading role in bringing
about the fall of the Schmidt government and its replacement by a Christian
Democrat–FDP coalition in 1982 by use of the constructive vote of no
confidence. As Foreign Minister under two Chancellors of different parties:
Helmut Schmidt (Social Democrats) and Helmut Kohl (Christian Democrats),
Genscher provided continuity of foreign policy and was able to promote his
strategy of combining the pursuit of détente with measures to ensure
the military and diplomatic security of the Federal Republic – a
policy stance that became known as ‘Genscherism’. He soon became
the most prominent of all the FDP politicians, and his reputation and fame
contributed much to the electoral survival of the FDP in 1983 and its
electoral successes in 1987 and 1990. He played a leading role both in
dealing with diplomatic incidents during the collapse of the communist
regime in the GDR (such as emigration of GDR refugees in Western embassies
in Eastern Europe in 1989) and in the diplomatic strategies which led to the
reunification of Germany in 1990.

Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry

President of France 1974–81.
Giscard was born in 1926 in Koblenz (Germany). He served in the Second World
War and then received an elite civil service education, graduating from the
newly created National College of Administration to take a post at the Bank
of France. Minister of Finance Edgar Fauré appointed Giscard to his staff
in 1954, keeping him on when Fauré became Prime Minister in 1955. In
1956 Giscard inherited his grandfather’s parliamentary seat of
Puy-le-Dôme. In the 1958 crisis, Giscard backed de Gaulle and retained
his seat at the first elections of the Fifth Republic. In 1962 he became
Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs. From 1962 to 1974, Giscard led the
development of liberalism in French politics. After the 1962 elections, his
party group, the Independent Republicans, supported the Gaullist government
as a coalition partner with the aim of promoting European integration and a
less authoritarian style of government. In 1966 Giscard left the government
and openly criticised de Gaulle, refusing to support him over the 1969
referendum on regional and senate reform. The failure of the referendum was
to bring down de Gaulle’s presidency. Giscard transferred his loyalty
to Pompidou and was rewarded by the new President with the Finance Ministry
(1969–74). When Pompidou died in 1974, Giscard won the presidential
elections. Determined to be a new-style ‘popular’ president, the
high expectations at the start of his term of office faded to
disillusionment. Giscard took office as the oil crises of 1973 and 1979 were
taking their toll in economic recession and inflation. Giscard had promised
liberal social reforms, but failed to deliver as anticipated. On Europe,
Giscard backed significant initiatives including the establishment of the
European Council, the EMS and the Franco-German entente, but his
administration was not noticeably less nationalist than that of his
predecessors. From 1976 to 1981, the Gaullists became increasingly critical
of the way in which Giscard himself kept tight control over policy. Jacques
Chirac, Giscard’s first Prime Minister, became his bitterest rival,
and played a major part in Giscard’s defeat in the presidential
election of 1981. Giscard’s presidency ended in a welter of scandals,
including the murder of a Giscardian Deputy of the National Assembly and the
suspicious suicide of a government minister. The last straw was
Giscard’s refusal to account for his acceptance of a gift of diamonds
from the African dictator Emperor Bokassa. Giscard returned to the National
Assembly as a Deputy in 1984. He was President of a weakened UDF
1988–96. He became President of the European international movement
1989–97 and led the UDF–RPR list in the 1989 European elections.
In 1997, he became President of the Council of European Municipalities and
Regions.

[See also: Chirac; de Gaulle; Pompidou; oil crisis*]

Goldsmith, James

Founder and principal financier of the
Referendum Party, which presented candidates at the 1997 British general
election. Goldsmith was born in Paris in 1933. He became a businessman,
amassing great wealth as a result of founding and developing companies. He
became convinced that British entry into the single European currency system
would be a national disaster, so he first campaigned vigorously for a
promise by the Conservative government that they would promise a referendum
on the issue on his terms, and, when that demand was rejected, financed
candidacies of Referendum Party supporters in constituencies where he and
his party regarded the Conservative candidate as unsound on the referendum
issue. None of his candidates was elected, but some received several
thousand votes in their constituencies, and could, in some cases, be
regarded as having cost the Conservative candidate that seat. The Referendum
Party was wound up after the election. Goldsmith died in 1997.

González Márquez, Felipe

Prime Minister of Spain 1982–96
and leader of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) 1979–97.
González was born in 1942 in Seville and studied law at the Catholic
University of Louvain in Belgium. Working in Seville as a lawyer, in 1966 he
introduced the first labour law centre specifically for workers. During
Franco’s regime, he was arrested several times for his association
with the banned socialists. He had joined the Spanish Socialist Youth in
1962 and the PSOE in 1964 and rose rapidly in the party ranks, becoming a
member of the Seville Provincial Committee 1965–69, the National
Committee 1969–70, and the Executive Board in 1970. In 1972, he became
leader of the largest faction within the party. He became first Secretary of
the PSOE 1974–79, resigned for a brief period before being re-elected
in September 1979 and then held the post of Secretary-General of the party
until his resignation in 1997. In 1982, the Socialists won a landslide
election and replaced Súarez’s centre-right government.
González was Prime Minister of Spain 1982–96, as well as leading
the PSOE party group in Parliament. Initially very popular, his government
was increasingly troubled by economic problems and by corruption scandals,
including the FILESA scandal, when a judge ordered searches of party records
which revealed illegal payments to the PSOE and later the trial of several
officials of the party. These scandals, although not directly involving
González in criminal charges, affected his reputation and probably
prevented him being considered as successor to the discredited Jacques
Santer as President of the EU Commission. González has now retired from
politics.

[See also: Franco; Suárez González; Felipeism*]

Grass, Günther

German leftist intellectual, writer
and artist: a vocal critic of the values of the Federal Republic of Germany
and particularly of the reunification project. Grass was born in 1927 in
Danzig (now Gdánsk, Poland) and went to art school. Best known as an
author, Grass received numerous prizes for literature and the arts, notably
the West German Group 47 Prize 1959; the literary prize of the Association
of German Critics 1960; the Thomas Mann prize 1996 and the Nobel Prize for
Literature 1999. His best known works are the fictional Tin Drum
(1959); From the Diary of a Snail (1972); and the political
commentary Two States – One Nation? (1990). He was President of
the Berlin Academy of the Arts 1983–86 and a member of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. A long-standing member of the Social
Democratic Party (SPD), he resigned in 1992.

[See also: reunification of Germany*]

Grimond, Jo

Leader of the British Liberal Party
1956–67. Grimond was born in 1913. Trained as a lawyer, he fought in
the Second World War, then entered Parliament in 1950 as MP for Orkney and
Shetland. Elected as party leader in 1956, Grimond succeeded in increasing
the very small number of Liberal MPs, and brought about a general, if
limited, revival of the party. He acted briefly as provisional party leader
in 1976 following the resignation of Jeremy Thorpe. He left Parliament in
1983. Grimond died in 1993.

[See also: Thorpe]

Gysi, Gregor

First leader of the Party of
Democratic Socialism (PDS), after its emergence from the Socialist Unity
Party (SED) at the end of 1989. Gysi was born in Berlin in 1948. He joined
the SED in 1967. He was a lawyer by profession, and gained a reputation as a
defender of dissidents. He became known as a reformer within the SED in the
closing months of the communist regime. This led to his election as Chairman
of the SED at its emergency congress in December 1989, leading a provisional
committee given the task of adapting the party to the change of regime in
the German Democratic Republic. He led the PDS in its electoral campaign for
the elections to the People’s Chamber in March 1990, and entered the
Bundestag in 1990 as a delegate in October following reunification, and
became an elected Member in December 1990. Gysi had to cope with accusations
that the SED had misused funds and had improperly sought to avoid public
accountability for its finances by sending large sums of money to foreign
bank accounts. Despite suspicions of association with the Stasi, Gysi
remained leader of the PDS until 1993, when he voluntarily gave up that
office in order to concentrate on his activities as leader of the PDS
parliamentary group in the Bundestag. Gysi was re-elected to the Bundestag
in 1994 and 1998, retaining his Berlin constituency seat in each case.

[See also: reunification of Germany*; Stasi*]

Hague, William

Leader of the British Conservative
Party and leader of the opposition in the House of Commons 1997–2001.
Hague was born in 1961 in Rotherham and studied at Oxford University, where
he was President of the Union 1981. After university he worked as a
management consultant for McKinsey and Co. 1983–88 and acted as a
political adviser to the Treasury. He made an early start to his political
career when he addressed the annual Conservative Conference at the age of
15. He has been MP for Richmond, Yorkshire since 1989. Prior to becoming
leader of the Conservative Party, he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to
the Chancellor of the Exchequer 1990–93; Parliamentary Under-Secretary
of State in the Department of Social Security 1993–94; Minister for
Social Security and Disabled People 1994–95; and Secretary of State
for Wales 1995–97. He has been Chair of the International Democratic
Union since 1999. Following the defeat of his party in the general election
of 2001, he announced his intention to resign as party leader. Following a
lengthy and complex electoral process, he was replaced by Iain Duncan Smith
in September 2001.

[See also: Duncan Smith]

Haider, Jörg

Leader of the far right Austrian
Freedom Party. Haider was born in 1950 in Carinthia and studied at Vienna
University. He joined the Liberal Youth Movement in 1964 and the Freedom
Party in 1971. He worked in private industry 1976–77 and was a Member
of Parliament 1979–83 and again from 1986. His controversial and
charismatic leadership of the Freedom Party promoted the party to the third
force in Austrian politics. There was an international outcry, particularly
amongst EU countries, when Haider’s party was asked to participate in
a coalition government after the elections in February 2000, and EU states
imposed various sanctions. He gave up the leadership of his party, but
remains active in the regional politics of Carinthia.

Hallstein, Walter

German diplomat and first President of
the European Commission 1958–67. Hallstein was born in Mainz in 1901.
He studied law and became a Professor of Law at Rostock and Frankfurt
Universities. He became a senior civil servant in Adenauer’s government, first in
the Federal Chancellery, then in the newly established Foreign Office. In
this position he was the chief negotiator for the Federal Republic in the
creation of the European Coal and Steel Community and the Messina
negotiations which led to the Treaty of Rome. In 1955 he formulated the
famous ‘Hallstein Doctrine’ concerning relations with states
which recognised the GDR. He served as President of the EEC Commission, but
French opposition prevented him from accepting the presidency of the EC
Commission following fusion of the EEC, ECSC and EURATOM institutions. He
served as a Member of the Bundestag for the CDU 1969–72. Hallstein
died in 1982.

[See also: ECSC*; Hallstein Doctrine*]

Haughey, Charles

Former Prime Minister of the Irish
Republic. Haughey was born in County Mayo in 1925. After studying law and
accountancy, he went into the property business before entering politics. He
became a member of the Irish legislature for Fianna Fail in 1957, and held a
number of ministerial posts from 1961 onwards. He resigned as Minister of
Finance in 1970 because of allegations of links to Irish Nationalist groups,
but following his acquittal on charges arising from those allegations he was
again appointed as Minister in 1977, and became Prime Minister and leader of
his party in 1979. He remained Prime Minister until 1981, and was again
Prime Minister briefly in 1982. In opposition, internal party conflicts led
to a break-away from Fianna Fail by some of its parliamentary group, to form
a new party: the Progressive Democrats. Haughey was again Prime Minister
from 1987. In 1992 he resigned as Prime Minister because of his association
with cases of illegal phone-tapping by his government. In retirement,
further accusations of financial impropriety were made against him
concerning large political donations made by industrialists.

Havemann, Robert

German scientist and political
dissident. Havemann was born in Munich in 1910. After studying chemistry at
Munich and Berlin Universities, he was employed in a scientific research
institute until forced from his post because of his membership of the
Communist Party in 1933. He was active in resistance groups in the Hitler
period, and on one occasion was caught, tried and sentenced to death, but
reprieved because the research he was engaged in was of relevance to the
German military. After the war, he became a Professor at the Humboldt
University in East Berlin, a post he held until he was expelled from the SED
in 1964 because of his dissident views. He was also an SED member of the
Volkskammer (the GDR Parliament) 1950–63. He continued to publicise
his dissident views, and was regarded as the leading theorist of a
democratic form of socialism in the GDR. This led to his being placed under
house arrest in 1976. He died in 1982.

[See also: Hitler; Resistance groups*]

Heath, Edward

Leader of the Conservative Party
1965–75 and British Prime Minister 1970–74. Heath was born in
Broadstairs in 1916. He studied at Oxford University and served as an
officer in the Second World War. He was first elected to the House of
Commons in 1950, becoming his party’s chief whip in 1955 and Minister
of Labour in 1959. In 1960 he was appointed as Lord Privy Seal (a
ministerial post without specific departmental responsibilities) and was
principal negotiator – though unsuccessful – of British entry to
the EEC. He was
Secretary of State for Industry in Home’s government (1963–64).
He became leader of the Conservatives in 1965 and, somewhat unexpectedly,
led his party to victory in the 1970 general election. He called an early
general election in February 1974 to try to defeat a series of strikes by
coalminers. However, he failed to obtain a majority and the Labour Party
formed the government. Heath also failed to win the general election in
October 1974, and he was defeated in a leadership election by Margaret
Thatcher in 1975. He never seemed to reconcile himself to this loss of party
leadership, the more especially as Mrs Thatcher was electorally more
successful than he had been and because she represented a very sceptical
approach to further developments in European integration, developments which
Heath seemed to welcome uncritically. Heath became ‘Father of the
House of Commons’ in 1992, having served longer than any other sitting
MP. He was re-elected in the 1997 general election, and as such presided
over the controversial election of a Speaker in 2000, following the
resignation of Mrs Boothroyd. When he left the House of Commons in 2001
Heath had served over half a century in the House of Commons.

[See also: Thatcher]

Herzog, Roman

President of Germany 1994–99.
Herzog was born in 1934 in Landshut and studied at the University of Munich,
the Free University of Berlin, and the College of Administrative Sciences at
Speyer. He has held high office in protestant organisations and in the
Christian Democratic Party (CDU). In the state of Baden-Württemberg he
was Minister for Culture and Sport 1978–80 and Minister for the
Interior 1980–83. He was a member of the Federal Committee of the CDU
1979–83. He was Vice-President of the Federal Constitutional Court
(FCC) 1983–87 and President of the FCC 1987–94. He was nominated
as the CDU candidate for President of the FRG after Kohl withdrew his
proposal to nominate Heitmann, a minister in the Saxony Land government,
whose lack of popularity within the party and outside it called into
question his suitability as presidential candidate.

Heuss, Theodor

First President of the Federal
Republic of Germany and first leader of the Free Democratic Party (FDP).
Heuss was born in Württemberg, in south-west Germany, in 1884. After a
period as a journalist, he taught political science in Berlin
(1920–33) and was elected to the Reichstag (the Parliament of the
Weimar Republic) for the German Democratic Party 1924–28 and
1930–33. Having criticised Hitler in his books and journalism, Heuss
was dismissed from his university post when the Nazis came to power. After
the Second World War, Heuss helped to found the Liberal Party in south-west
Germany, was the first Minister of Education for the Land of
Württemberg-Baden, and a member of the Land Parliament. When a liberal
party for West Germany was founded in 1948, he was elected as its first
leader. He was an influential member of the Parliamentary Council, which
drafted the Basic Law for the new Federal Republic. Coalition negotiations
between the FDP and Adenauer’s Christian Democrats led to an agreement
that Heuss would be supported by both parties for the position of Federal
President when the Federal Republic was founded in 1949. Heuss was a
much-respected President, and enjoyed a good relationship with Adenauer. He
was re-elected as Federal President in 1954 for a second term. He died in
1963.

[See also: Adenauer; Hitler; nazism*]

Heym, Stefan

Controversial writer from the former
German Democratic Republic (GDR) and latterly social democratic politician.
Heym was born 10 April 1913 in Chemnitz and studied at the Universities of
Berlin and Chicago. In 1933 he fled the National Socialist regime to
Czechoslovakia where he worked as a journalist until 1935. He left for the
USA in 1935, working as a waiter as he edited an anti-fascist newspaper. He
served in the American army 1943–45. He was co-founder of the
newspaper: the Neue Zeitung in Munich in 1945. In 1950 he led the
American delegation to the Second World Peace Congress in Warsaw. In 1952 he
returned to what was now the GDR. He was a member of the executive board of
the GDR Writers’ Association but was expelled in 1979. After German
unification he joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and was a Member of
the Bundestag 1994–96. He died in 2001.

Hitler, Adolf

Chancellor and then President of the
Weimar Republic; leader (‘Führer’) of the Nazi state
– the Third Reich. Hitler was born in 1889 in Braunau (Austria). After
failure to enter training courses for art and architecture, he served in the
Bavarian army in the First World War, attaining the rank of corporal and
being awarded the Iron Cross. After the war, he became employed in various
tasks for the military, then joined and took over the National Socialist
Workers’ Party (Nazi Party). In 1923 he attempted, with General
Ludendorff (one of the military rulers of Germany during the war), to seize
control of the Bavarian government by an armed putsch. This failed, and he
was sentenced to imprisonment, during which time he commenced writing his
manifesto: Mein Kampf (My Struggle). The crises which weakened the
Weimar Republic provided opportunities for both electoral advances and
direct action by the Nazis, and in 1933 President Hindenburg was compelled
to ask Hitler to form a coalition government. Hitler used this opportunity
to manufacture an election victory with the aid of the Reichstag fire
(allowing him to exclude communists – blamed for starting the fire
– from the Parliament) and then to pass emergency legislation (the
Enabling Acts) which in effect marked the end of democracy and the
commencement of the dictatorial Third Reich. Exerting a form of totalitarian
rule in Germany, which included a policy of violent discrimination against
the Jewish population and, later, their transfer to concentration camps and
their mass murder, Hitler was able to commence what he regarded as
‘rectifications’ of the Versailles Treaty, including
reoccupation of the Rhineland by the German military, the annexation of
Austria and then seizure of territory from Czechoslovakia and Poland. This
led to the Second World War, in which Hitler, after initial successes in
northern and western Europe, sought to defeat the USSR. The entry of the USA
into the war in 1941 marked the beginning of Hitler’s downfall. The
German army was halted at Stalingrad and at El Alamein (North Africa), and
Allied invasions of Italy (1943) and France (1944) led to the defeat of the
German military, their unconditional surrender and the occupation of Germany
in 1945. Hitler, who had been the target of assassination attempts (most
notably the ‘July plot’ in 1944), committed suicide in his
Berlin headquarters a few days before the surrender of German forces.

[See also: nazism*]

Home, Lord

British Prime Minister and leader of
the Conservative Party 1963–64. Alec Douglas-Home was born in London
in 1903 and was educated at Eton and Oxford University. He was elected to the House
of Commons in 1931, and became an aide to Chamberlain during pre-war
negotiations with Hitler. He succeeded to the hereditary title of Earl of
Home in 1951, and held several ministerial positions in Conservative
governments before Macmillan appointed him as Foreign Secretary in 1960.
When Macmillan announced his resignation as party leader and Prime Minister,
he surprisingly recommended Lord Home as his successor. This led necessarily
to Home resigning his peerage under the 1963 Peerage Act, and he was elected
to the House of Commons in a by-election. Home never established his
authority as Prime Minister, and was defeated in the 1964 general election.
He resigned as party leader in 1965, and became Foreign Secretary for a
second time in Heath’s 1970 government. He returned to the House of
Lords as a life peer in 1974. He died in 1995.

[See also: Heath; Hitler; Macmillan]

Honecker, Erich

General Secretary (i.e. leader) of the
ruling communist party (the Socialist Unity Party: SED) in the German
Democratic Republic from 1971 until his forced resignation in 1989. He was
born in the Saarland in 1912. He joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD)
in 1929. Honecker was imprisoned during the Third Reich because of his
underground political activities. In the Soviet zone of occupation, later
the German Democratic Republic, he was leader of the communist youth
organisation (the Free German Youth: FDJ) until 1955. He rose rapidly within
the SED organisation, and was put in charge of the building of the Berlin
Wall in 1961. As leader of the SED, he attempted to introduce a measure of
economic modernisation, though remaining within the confines of a strictly
controlled and planned economy. He was a loyal follower of the Soviet
Union’s policies, eagerly committing the GDR to support of repression
of reformist movements in other countries of the Soviet bloc. At Soviet
insistence, he participated in the development of policies of détente
in the 1970s, including signing of the Basic Treaty with the Federal
Republic of Germany and the Helsinki Treaties. He made a long-awaited
official visit to the Federal Republic in 1987. As events unfolded in the
second half of 1989, Honecker maintained a stubborn refusal to adapt the
policies of the regime in any way, even, in this case, rejecting the lead of
Gorbachev and the Soviet Union Communist Party with their policies of
glasnost and perestroika. Though he was still leader of the GDR when the
state celebrated the fortieth anniversary of its foundation in October 1989,
he was compelled by his colleagues (with the acquiescence of the USSR) to
resign on 17 October 1989. After German reunification, he was charged with
various offences, including the ‘shoot to kill’ orders which
resulted in the deaths of many would-be escapees at the East German border.
He escaped trial because of illness, and died of cancer in Chile in
1994.

Hume, John

Leader of the Irish Social Democratic
and Labour Party (SDLP) since 1979. Born in 1937 in Londonderry, Northern
Ireland, Hume studied at the National University of Ireland. He was
appointed Research Fellow at Trinity College and then Associate Fellow at
the Centre for International Affairs at Harvard. He was a founder member of
the Credit Union in Northern Ireland and its President 1964–68.
Opposed to violence, he was a civil rights leader 1968–69. Hume
represented Londonderry in the Northern Ireland Parliament 1969–72 and
the Northern Ireland Assembly 1972–73. He was Minister of Commerce in the
power-sharing executive of 1974 and again represented Londonderry in the
Northern Ireland Convention 1975–76. He has been a Member of the
European Parliament since 1979. He was a Member of the Northern Ireland
Assembly 1982–86 and from 1998. He participated in the SDLP New
Ireland Forum 1983–84. He has held many national and international
posts, particularly concerning workers’ issues, regional issues and
civil rights.

Jenkins, Roy

Former senior British Labour Party
politician, former President of the Commission of the European Community,
and co-founder of the Social Democratic Party. Jenkins was born in
Abersychan, Wales, in 1920. He was first elected to the House of Commons in
1948, and was appointed to several ministerial offices in Labour
governments, including those of Home Secretary (1965–67 and
1974–76) and Chancellor of the Exchequer (1967–70). He was
elected as deputy leader of the British Labour Party in 1970. Jenkins served
as President of the EC Commission 1977–81. As one of the ‘Gang
of Four’ he founded the Social Democratic Party in 1981, and became
its first elected leader in 1982, though he gave way as leader to David Owen
in 1983. He entered the House of Lords as Lord Jenkins of Hillhead in 1988.
He served as Chancellor of Oxford University, and has written several
well-received books, especially biographies of Asquith, Dilke and Gladstone.
In 1998 he was Chairman of a Commission on Electoral Reform, which reported
in October 1998.

[See also: Gang of Four*]

Jospin, Lionel

Prime Minister of France since 1997;
leader of the Socialist Party 1981–87; 1995–97. Jospin was born
in 1937 at Meudon (Seine-et-Oise). He graduated from the Institute of
Political Studies and the National College of Administration in Paris and
embarked on a career in the Foreign Ministry (1965–70) before taking
up a university post in economics (1970–81). A protégé of
Mitterrand, he joined the Socialist Party (PS) in 1972 and was advanced
rapidly as one of a new cadre of leaders who Mitterrand hoped would keep the
party loyal to him. From 1973 to 1975 Jospin was the party’s National
Secretary for Political Education before taking charge of Third World
Relations (1975–79) and then International Affairs (1979–81). He
was appointed First Secretary of the party in 1981, leading the party in a
process of ideological transformation away from traditional socialism
towards a new style of social democracy, which culminated in the
party’s 1985 Congress at Toulouse. As party leader he was forced to
adopt a rather passive leadership role during the cohabitation period from
1986 and faced growing criticism from within the PS. He stood down in 1987,
but later took up the party leadership again (1995–97). After
Mitterrand’s re-election as President in 1988, Jospin was rewarded
with the prestigious post of Minister of State for Education, Research and
Sport in Rocard’s government, keeping education as the ministerial
responsibilities were restructured. In 1997 he was appointed Prime Minister
following the general election called by newly elected President Chirac, and
which resulted in ‘cohabitation’ when the PS won that
election.

[See also: Mitterrand; Rocard; cohabitation*]

Juan Carlos, King

King of Spain since 1975. Juan Carlos
was born in Rome in 1938. He was the grandson of King Alfonso XIII, who
abdicated in 1931. Invited by Franco to return to Spain from exile in 1960, he was
nominated in 1969 by Franco as heir to the Spanish throne (bypassing his
father, Don Juan). On Franco’s death in 1975, Juan Carlos became King.
Franco had believed Juan Carlos would be a reliable defender of the values
of his authoritarian regime, but Juan Carlos proved to be a promoter of
democracy, and sought to become a constitutional monarch on the model of the
British and northern European monarchies. He bravely resisted the group of
officers who attempted to engineer a military coup in February 1981. He has
proved to be an integrative figure in the Spanish political system,
characterised as it is by strong regional identities.

[See also: Franco; Spanish coup attempt*]

Karamanlis (Caramanlis), Konstantine

Prime Minister of Greece
1955–58, 1958–61, 1961–63, 1974–80; President of
Greece 1980–85, 1990. Karamanlis was born in 1907 in Macedonia and
graduated in law from the University of Athens in 1932. He was elected to
Parliament in 1935. The dictator Ioannis Metaxas closed the Parliament in
1936 and offered Karamanlis a place in his government, but Karamanlis
refused and stayed out of politics until after the Second World War. He was
elected to Parliament again in 1946 and served in various ministerial
positions until the mid-1950s, becoming popular particularly as Minister of
Public Works 1952–54. During his first term as Prime Minister he
formed the National Radical Union and won the elections of 1956. The
defection of some of his party group to the opposition in 1958 led to his
resignation, but he was again named Prime Minister after elections in May
1958. During this period he negotiated the establishment of an independent
republic of Cyprus with Turkey. In spite of allegations of electoral fraud,
his party was successful again in 1961 and he resumed as Prime Minister,
resigning in 1963 over a dispute with King Paul I over the respective powers
of the monarch and the prime minister. Karamanlis left Greece for Paris
where he stayed for ten years. After the military takeover in 1967, he
issued statements calling for the re-establishment of democratic rule. In
1974, following the crisis between Turkey and Greece over Cyprus, Karamanlis
was asked to return and form a civilian government. He negotiated a
settlement to the war in Cyprus and introduced democratic reforms. He lifted
the military junta’s ban on free speech and the press and cancelled
most of the martial law measures. He founded the New Democracy party which
formed a majority government. He stepped down as Prime Minister to become
President of Greece in 1980 and was again President in 1990.

[See also: Aegean Sea dispute*]

Kekkonen, Urho

President of Finland 1956–81.
Kekkonen was born in Pielavesi in 1900. He studied law at Helsinki
University, then was employed as a civil servant. He entered the Finnish
Parliament in 1936 as a representative of the Agrarian Party, and became a
minister in the coalition government. After the Second World War he helped
to negotiate a treaty of friendship with the USSR in 1948. He became Prime
Minister in 1950, and served, with one interruption, until 1956. He was a
proponent of a policy of co-operation with the USSR, which has acquired the
label: ‘Finlandisation’. He resigned as President on grounds of
ill-health in 1981. He died in 1986.

[See also: Finlandisation*]

Kelly, Petra

Leading member of the West German
Green Party in its early years. Kelly was born in Günzburg in 1947. She studied
political science at university in the USA. She then was employed by the
European Community as an administrator. She was a member of the SPD
1972–78, but resigned in protest at the moderate and compromising
policies of the Schmidt government. She became involved in the feminist,
peace and ecological movements in Germany, and played a leading part in
establishing the Green Party in West Germany, including campaigning
vigorously in the 1980 and 1983 Bundestag elections. She was elected to the
Bundestag in 1983 and 1987, and was involved in the collective leadership of
the party within and outside the Bundestag. She was associated with the
‘fundamentalist’ wing of the Green Party, rejecting any idea of
forming coalitions with established parties, though she came to oppose
several of the party’s organisational tenets, such as rotation of
office, and came to view the party’s organisation as primitive and
amateurish. Her views and her obvious charisma (which led to her being seen
by the media as the personification of the Green movement) led to her
increasing unpopularity within the Green Party. She committed suicide with
her partner, the former General Gerd Bastian, in 1992.

Kennedy, Charles

Leader of the British Liberal
Democratic Party since 1999. Kennedy was born in Fort William in 1959. He
studied at Glasgow University and commenced a career in broadcasting before
being elected for the Social Democratic Party for the constituency of Ross,
Cromarty and Skye in 1983. In 1988 he agreed to support the merger of the
SDP with the Liberals. In 1999, following the resignation as party leader of
Paddy Ashdown, Kennedy was elected leader by a vote of the party
membership.

[See also: Ashdown]

Kiesinger, Kurt Georg

Chancellor of the Federal Republic of
Germany 1966–69. Kiesinger was born in Württemberg in 1904, and
qualified as a lawyer. He was employed in the German Foreign Office during
the Second World War. He was elected to the Bundestag as a Christian
Democrat in 1949, but resigned his seat in 1958 to become Prime Minister of
Baden-Württemberg. When Erhard was compelled to resign as Chancellor in
1966, Kiesinger was chosen to take his place at the head of a ‘grand
coalition’ between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats
(SPD). That coalition was responsible for several achievements, including
the stabilisation of the economy, some improvements in relations with
Eastern European states, and the preservation of a democratic regime
challenged by extremists from the left-wing student movement and the radical
right-wing National Democratic Party. Though his party secured the largest
share of votes in the 1969 federal election, Kiesinger had to make way for
Chancellor Brandt who led a coalition between the SPD and Free Democratic
Party. Kiesinger was leader of the CDU 1967–71 and was again a Member
of the Bundestag from 1969 to 1980. He died in 1988.

[See also: Brandt; Erhard; grand coalition*]

Kinnock, Neil

Leader of the British Labour Party
1983–92. Kinnock was born in Tredegar in 1942. He engaged in socialist
political activity while a student, and was elected to the House of Commons
in 1970. He was elected to succeed Michael Foot as party leader. Though he,
like Foot, had a left-wing reputation, being among other things a staunch
supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Kinnock realised that for
Labour to win general elections in future it would have to discard many of its
ideological attitudes. He thus introduced measures of organisational and
policy reform. Defeated in the 1987 general election, Kinnock had high hopes
of winning in 1992. When Labour was defeated again, even though more
narrowly than in the 1980s, Kinnock resigned as party leader. He became a
Commissioner of the European Union in 1994, and survived the scandals that
led to the resignation of Santer and his fellow Commissioners in 1998, being
reappointed with the responsibility of reforming the administration,
financial control and practices of the Commission.

Kohl, Helmut

Chancellor of the Federal Republic of
Germany 1982–98; leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
1973–98; Prime Minister of Rhineland-Pfalz 1969–76. Kohl was
born in 1930 in Ludwigshafen, and was awarded his doctorate in political
science from Heidelberg University in 1958. He joined the CDU in 1946, and
held numerous party offices at local and Land levels. He was
chancellor-candidate in the 1976 Bundestag election, but, though securing
the highest vote-share for the Christian Democrats since Adenauer’s
absolute majority of votes in 1957, this was insufficient to defeat the
Social Democrat–Free Democrat (FDP) coalition. He became Chancellor
when the FDP withdrew from that coalition in 1982, and supported Kohl in the
first ever successful use of the constructive vote of no confidence, which
dismissed Helmut Schmidt from the office of Chancellor. Though Kohl had
successes in politics prior to 1990, and led his coalition to election
victories in 1983 and 1987, his place in history will be based mainly upon
his leading role in promoting the reunification of Germany in 1990. His
ten-point plan of 28 November 1989 referred to the possibility of
reunification. However, his negotiations with the government of the GDR in
December 1989 and February 1990; his personal popularity in the GDR in early
1990 and his successful sponsorship of the Christian Democrat-led electoral
‘Alliance for Germany’ in the first free elections to the GDR
People’s Chamber in March 1990; his promotion of economic and monetary
union of the two German states; and his role in negotiations with other
states (especially the USSR) to lay the diplomatic foundations for German
reunification will all be seen as great personal achievements. Following
German reunification, he led his coalition to a narrow victory in the 1994
Bundestag election, a victory which owed much to his personal popularity. He
was unable to capitalise on that popularity in the 1998 election, following
which some experts stated that he should have made way for a replacement
chancellor-candidate well before that election campaign got under way.
Immediately after the election result was known on 27 September 1998 he
announced his intention to resign as leader of the CDU, and later that year
was replaced by his protégé, Wolfgang Schäuble. In 1999
revelations of secret donations to the CDU led to a scandal, in which Kohl
was centrally involved.

Kreisky, Bruno

Chancellor of Austria 1970–83.
Kreisky was born in Vienna in 1911. He studied law at university, and became
active in politics as a socialist. He was imprisoned following the socialist
uprising in Austria in 1934, and was again briefly imprisoned in 1938 after the Nazis
took over Austria. He emigrated to Sweden later in 1938, returning to
Austria after the end of the war. After periods in the diplomatic service
and as a civil servant, he was appointed Austrian Foreign Minister in 1959,
a position he retained until 1966. In 1967 he became leader of the Social
Democratic Party (the SPÖ). Though head of a minority government in
1970, Kreisky’s personal popularity contributed to his party’s
successes in elections in 1971, 1975 and 1979, where in each case it secured
an absolute majority of seats. As leader of the government of a neutral
state, Kreisky was able to play a role (with others such as Olaf Palme) in
mediation in several international conflicts, especially in the Middle East.
He resigned as Chancellor following the loss of a parliamentary majority in
the 1983 elections.

[See also: Palme; nazism*]

Krenz, Egon

The last leader of the communist
regime in the German Democratic Republic. Krenz was born in 1937 in
Pomerania, now part of Poland. Krenz developed a career within the Socialist
Unity Party (the SED) which he joined in 1955, becoming leader of the Free
German Youth in 1974. He was long regarded as the probable successor to
Honecker, and when Honecker was compelled to resign his offices in October
1989 because of manoeuvres initiated by Krenz and others, Krenz took over as
party General-Secretary and head of state. In his short period as leader, he
attempted to introduce concessions on issues such as freedom to travel, but
these reforms were always too little to satisfy the growing numbers of
discontented East Germans. The opening of the border on 9 November 1989 (the
‘fall of the Berlin Wall’) seemed to result from a
misunderstanding rather than a considered policy decision. Krenz resigned
his offices in December 1989. In 1999 he was sentenced to a term of
imprisonment for his implication in fraud.

[See also: Honecker; reunification of Germany*]

Lafontaine, Oskar

Former leader of the German Social
Democratic Party (SPD) and the SPD’s chancellor-candidate in the 1990
Bundestag election. Lafontaine was born in Saarlouis (Saarland) in 1943 and
studied physics at university. He joined the SPD in 1966, and was elected to
the Saarland legislature in 1970. He became lord mayor of Saarbrücken
in 1976 (at the time, he was the youngest city leader in West Germany). In
1985 he became Prime Minister of the Saarland after the SPD’s first
post-war election victory in the Saarland parliamentary elections. He became
a deputy leader of the SPD in 1987. He was unable to revive the fortunes of
the SPD in the 1990 all-German Bundestag election: the SPD only secured 33.5
per cent, its worst showing for thirty years. In that campaign, Lafontaine
was stabbed in the neck by a deranged person, who inflicted a serious wound.
Lafontaine’s sceptical stance vis-à-vis German reunification,
especially concerning its likely costs, is thought to have been a factor in
that 1990 election defeat. In 1995, Lafontaine successfully challenged the
incumbent party leader, Scharping, for the party leadership. This meant that
when the SPD came to power in the 1998 Bundestag election, Lafontaine could
take much of the credit, and could demand an important government post;
Schröder appointed him as Finance Minister. However, Lafontaine’s
traditionalist social democratic views were at odds with the more
modernistic policies pursued by Chancellor Schröder and the two were
frequently in conflict. Lafontaine unexpectedly announced his resignation from
government and party offices on 11 March 1999.

[See also: Scharping; Schröder; reunification of
Germany*]

Lambsdorff, Otto Graf

Leader of the German FDP
1988–93. Lambsdorff was born in Aachen in 1926. He served in the
Second World War, and was seriously wounded in the closing days of that
conflict. Following study of law at university, after the war was over he
practised as a lawyer, then worked in the banking and insurance sectors. He
joined the FDP in 1951, and became a member of the party executive in 1972,
the year of his first election to the Bundestag. After a period as economics
spokesman for his parliamentary party group, he became Minister of Economics
in the Schmidt government in 1977. His strongly liberal and free-enterprise
attitude to the economy led to conflicts with Schmidt and eventually to the
termination of the SPD–FDP coalition in 1982. He remained as Economics
Minister in the Kohl government, but resigned in 1984 because of his
implication in the Flick Affair. As party leader, he decided to remain
outside the government, and led his party to an excellent result in the 1990
Bundestag election.

[See also: Kohl; Schmidt; Flick Affair*;
‘Wende’*]

Laval, Pierre

Prime Minister of the Vichy government
in war-time France, and executed for treason in 1945, Laval bore the brunt
of recriminations against the Vichy regime which had collaborated with Nazi
Germany. Born in the Auvergne in 1883, Laval studied science at Lyons and
law in Paris. He founded a law practice and a radio and press empire, which
funded his political activities. A socialist, he was elected to the
Parliament of the French Third Republic in 1914. More interested in his
constituency than in ideology, when the Socialist and Communists split in
1920, Laval continued as an independent and was elected to the Senate in
1927. He was Minister and Prime Minister in a series of governments
1925–35, moving progressively to the right of the political spectrum
in reaction to the success of the left-wing Popular Front and through his
increasing attraction to fascism. Convinced that Bolshevism posed the main
threat to European civilisation, Laval tried actively to promote
Franco-German relations. He joined Marshal Pétain’s right-wing
Vichy government, first as Deputy Prime Minister (1940), then as Prime
Minister (1942–44). After the armistice with Germany on 22 June 1940,
Laval masterminded the suspension of the 1875 constitution and the transfer
of full powers to Pétain on 10 July 1940, ending the Third Republic. As
Prime Minister, Laval made growing concessions to Hitler, including the
authorisation of French labour for the Nazi war effort and the deportation
of Jews. After the fall of the Vichy regime, he was executed after a
notional trial on 15 October 1945.

[See also: Hitler; nazism*; Vichy regime*]

Lemass, Sean Francis

Irish revolutionary and Prime Minister
of Ireland 1959–66. Lemass was born in 1899 in Dublin and took part in
the Irish independence movement that culminated in the Easter Week Rebellion
in 1916. When the rebellion collapsed he was arrested by the British forces,
but his young age saved him from imprisonment or execution. Lemass joined
the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and was again arrested for revolutionary
activities. He was kept in prison until July 1921 when a truce was declared.
When civil war broke out in July 1922, Lemass fought with the IRA, was captured, but
managed to escape. Recaptured in December 1922 he stayed in prison until the
Republicans were defeated in the spring of 1923. Lemass resigned from the
Sinn Féin party and joined de Valera’s new Fianna Fail (FF)
party. In 1924 he was elected to the Irish Parliament. In 1932, he became de
Valera’s Minister of Industry and Commerce. In 1939 he became Minister
of Supplies, a post he kept until 1945. After the Second World War he was
Deputy Prime Minister until Fianna Fail was defeated in the 1948 elections.
Lemass then worked for the party newspaper: the Irish Press until FF
returned to power in 1951 and he again became Deputy Prime Minister and
Minister of Industry and Commerce. When, in 1959, de Valera resigned as
Prime Minister to become President, Lemass was his successor. He negotiated
with Northern Ireland in the hope of reuniting the country. In 1965 he
arranged a free trade pact with Britain. He resigned as Prime Minister in
1966 but remained in Parliament until his retirement in 1969. Lemass died in
1971.

[See also: Irish Republican Army*]

Leone, Giovanni

Prime Minister of Italy
June–November 1963; June–December 1968; President of Italy
1971–78. Giovanni Leone was born in 1908 in Naples. He studied at the
University of Naples, then became a Professor of Law there. He began a long
parliamentary career as a Christian Democrat (DC) representative with his
election to the Constituent Assembly in 1946. He was Vice-President of the
Chamber of Deputies 1948–49 and its President 1955–63. After his
first premiership, he became a life senator in 1967. He was elected
President of Italy in 1971 as a compromise candidate after 23 ballots. His
presidency coincided with a period of terrorist campaigns in Italy. He was
forced to resign his presidency through his implication in a corruption
scandal: the first Italian president to suffer this disgrace. He died in
2001.

Le Pen, Jean-Marie

Leader of the radical right-wing
National Front party in France. Born in 1928 at La Trinité-sur-Mer
(Morbihan), Le Pen studied in Paris, graduating in law and political
science. Violently anti-Marxist, he was a student leader 1949–51 and
was often in trouble with the police for taking part in fights. In 1953 he
joined the Foreign Legion and went to Indo-China as a parachutist, where he
worked as a political journalist for the military’s press. He returned
to his studies and his activities in student politics in 1954. In 1956 he
was elected as a Poujadiste (reactionary, anti-taxation party) Deputy and
gained a reputation as a charismatic speaker. He rejoined his former
regiment 1956–57. In 1957 he was accused of torturing a young Algerian
arrested by the parachutists, but was not prosecuted. Back in France, Le Pen
lost an eye in a fight at an electoral meeting trying to defend a Muslim
friend. In late 1957, he left the Poujadistes and sat first as an
independent in the National Assembly, then, from 1958 to 1962, with the
conservative party group Independents and Peasants. Le Pen was sued for
allegedly pro-Nazi statements. He actively supported the presidential
campaign of the right-wing candidate Tixier-Vignancourt in 1965. In 1972 he
launched his own party, the far right Front National (FN), on a platform of
nationalism, morality, anti-communism and law and order. He and his family
survived a bomb attack at their home in 1976. After a disastrous return of
0.74 per cent of the vote at the presidential election of 1974, the FN made
little impact until the 1980s, when it made a credible showing at local and
European elections and Le Pen became a media celebrity. Le Pen was returned to
Parliament for the FN in 1986, where he was an outspoken advocate of the
repatriation of immigrants and tougher policing, but was damaged by a very
public and acrimonious divorce and by his comments which played down the
Holocaust. In 1987, a cheap joke he made about gas ovens resulted in the one
FN Deputy in Parliament leaving the party and the RPR ruling out any future
local or national electoral alliance with the FN.

[See also: Poujade; Holocaust*; immigration*; nazism*]

Lubbers, Ruud

Prime Minister of the Netherlands
1982–86 and 1989–94. Lubbers was born in Rotterdam in 1939.
After studying economics, he managed the family machinery production
business. A Christian Democrat, he served as Economics Minister
1973–77. In 1982 he became the youngest ever Netherlands Prime
Minister. He played a significant role in bringing about the Maastricht
Treaty in December 1991, since the Netherlands held the presidency of the
Council of Ministers at the time.

[See also: Maastricht Treaty*]

Lübke, Heinrich

President of the Federal Republic of
Germany 1959–69. Lübke was born in Enkhausen, Westphalia in 1894.
Having studied engineering, his employment before the Second World War
included that of director of the German Farmers’ Association. During
the war he was engaged in the design of buildings for war purposes,
including the factories which produced the V–1 ‘flying
bombs’ in Peenemunde (an activity which was used by his opponents to
attack Lübke during his presidency). After the war he was active in
founding the CDU, and served first in the Land government of North
Rhine-Westphalia, then in the federal government, as Minister for Food and
Agriculture. When Adenauer decided that he himself would not seek the
presidency in 1959, and when other leading CDU politicians such as Erhard
also refused to be candidates, Lübke was chosen. He was criticised
during his presidency for his blunders in public speaking, although it was
subsequently suggested that these might have been caused by advancing
illness. He used his second term as President (1964–69) to promote the
idea of a ‘grand coalition’ of the CDU–CSU and SPD, an
idea which became reality in 1966. Lübke died in 1972.

[See also: Adenauer; Erhard; grand coalition*]

Macmillan, Harold

British Prime Minister and leader of
the Conservative Party 1957–63. Macmillan was born in London in 1894
and educated at Eton and Oxford University. He served and was wounded in the
First World War. While directing the family publishing firm, he entered the
House of Commons in 1924. He held various posts in Churchill’s
war-time government, and in the post-war Conservative governments of
Churchill and Eden, including the post of Foreign Secretary in 1955 and then
Chancellor of the Exchequer. On Eden’s retirement, Macmillan became
Prime Minister. He is particularly remembered for presiding over a period of
economic growth in the late 1950s, coining the phrase: ‘you’ve
never had it so good’; for his acceptance of the decline of British
power in its former African possessions, where he used the phrase:
‘the winds of change’ to describe the process of African states
asserting their independence; and for making an unsuccessful attempt to take
the United Kingdom into the European Economic Community. Though he won the
general election of 1959 with a large majority, illness and a series of
debilitating political crises (including the Profumo scandal) persuaded him to
resign in 1963, before the 1964 general election, handing over as Prime
Minister and leader to Lord Home. He became the Earl of Stockton in 1984,
and died in 1986.

[See also: Churchill; Eden; Home; Profumo Affair*]

de Maizière, Lothar

Prime Minister of the German
Democratic Republic following the first (and only) free elections to the
People’s Chamber (Volkskammer) in 1990. De Maizière was born in
Nordhausen in 1940. He studied music and law, and joined the East German CDU
(a party within the block-party arrangement of GDR parties, under the
dominance of the communist party, the SED). As a lawyer, he defended several
dissidents prior to the collapse of the communist regime in 1989. He was
active in church affairs and held high office within the East German
Protestant church. During the political turbulence following
Honecker’s resignation in 1989, de Maizière was elected in
November 1989 as Chairman of the GDR–CDU when the previous Chairman,
associated with the years of CDU subservience to the SED, had to resign. He
led the CDU-dominated electoral ‘Alliance for Germany’ to
victory in the 1990 elections to the People’s Chamber, becoming Prime
Minister after that election. He enthusiastically pursued negotiations with
the government of the Federal Republic and with foreign governments, leading
to economic and monetary union, then to political fusion, with the FRG.
Following reunification he served briefly in Kohl’s government as a
minister without portfolio, and was elected to the Bundestag in December
1990. However, as with many other prominent East German politicians,
accusations of association with the GDR secret police (the Stasi) proved to
be such a political embarrassment to de Maizière that he resigned from
his party offices, his political career at an end.

[See also: Honecker; Kohl; reunification of Germany*;
Stasi*]

Major, John

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
and leader of the Conservative Party 1990–97. John Major was born in
1943 in Carlshalton, Surrey. He entered a career in banking, combining this
with local government activities in London. He became an MP in 1979. He rose
rapidly within the ranks of the Thatcher government, serving as Foreign
Minister and then Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1989. In 1990 he persuaded
Mrs Thatcher to allow Britain to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism,
which limited currency fluctuations. However, Britain had to abandon its
membership of that currency system in 1992. Though he had, somewhat
surprisingly, led the Conservatives to victory in the 1992 general election,
his small majority in the House of Commons soon eroded. This meant that he
could not afford to offend either the pro-European or the
‘euro-sceptic’ wings of his party, which gave the impression of
indecisive leadership. He was unable to prevent the Conservative Party
suffering a heavy defeat in the 1997 general election. Major took
responsibility for that defeat, and resigned as party leader shortly
afterwards.

[See also: Thatcher; Exchange Rate Mechanism*;
euro-sceptic*]

Makarios, Archbishop

President of the Republic of Cyprus
1959–77. Makarios was born as Mihail Mouskos in Cyprus in 1913. He
became a priest of the Orthodox church in 1946, a bishop in 1948, and
archbishop in 1950. He was a leader of the Enosis movement in Cyprus, which
sought to link
Cyprus to Greece. The British colonial authorities arrested Makarios and
deported him to the Seychelles in 1956. He returned to Cyprus in 1959 and
became Prime Minister in the government which combined Greek and Turkish
Cypriot leaders. Ousted by a military coup in 1974, he returned as Prime
Minister of the Greek part of Cyprus in 1975 and held that office until his
death in 1977.

[See also: Colonels’ coup*; Enosis*]

Marchais, Georges

Leader of the French Communist Party.
Born into a working-class background at La Hoguette (Calvados) in 1920,
Marchais was a skilled mechanic in the aeronautics industry. Later, his
political career was dogged by controversy over his war-time record:
Marchais denied the allegation that he worked voluntarily at the German
Messerschmidt factory in Neu-Ulm before the introduction of compulsory
labour regulations in 1943. After the Second World War, he became involved
in trade union activity and in 1947 joined the French Communist Party (PCF).
In 1956, he became Secretary of the Seine-South federation of the party and
joined the Central Committee and Political Bureau in 1959. In 1961, he was
made responsible for party organisation and in 1972 became leader of the
PCF. He stood in the presidential elections of 1981, losing to his socialist
rival Mitterrand. Throughout the 1960s, Marchais was known as a
plain-speaking pro-Soviet. Controversially, he did not see the social unrest
of May 1968 as an opportunity for socialist revolution. Instead he
criticised the student leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit as a ‘German
anarchist’ and saw the groups taking part in the protest as
‘false revolutionaries’ and splinter groups. Marchais led the
PCF to assert the legitimacy of the Soviet Union’s invasion of
Czechoslovakia. In 1972 Marchais signed the historic Common Programme for
the alliance of the left with the Socialist Party (PS) and left-wing
Radicals, and later joined a coalition governmnent with the PS
(1981–84). During the 1970s, Marchais presented the PCF as
‘eurocommunist’, adopting a specific French path to communism in
place of the model of the Soviet Union. Under eurocommunism, the PCF dropped
some aspects of Marxist–Leninist doctrine, accepted full democratic
rights as understood in Western countries, and acknowledged the principle of
pluralism in free elections and a multi-party system, social and religious
life. However, when electoral gains in support fell in favour of the
Socialists rather than the Communists, Marchais withdrew the PCF from the
co-operation with the PS and turned the party back to a more pro-Soviet
line, particularly on world issues such as the Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan and on events in Poland. As the PCF’s electoral support
declined rapidly from 1981 to 1986, Marchais’ support within the party
crumbled. He was accused of authoritarianism and dissident
‘renovators’ began to contest the leadership from the late
1980s.

[See also: Mitterrand; eurocommunism*]

Martens, Wilfried

Prime Minister of Belgium
1979–81, 1981–92 and prominent European christian democrat.
Martens was born in 1936 at Sleidinge. He studied at Louvain University and
in 1960 became a lawyer at the Court of Appeal in Ghent. He was a leader of
the Flemish People’s Movement before becoming a christian democrat. He
joined the Christian People’s Party (CVP) in 1962 and was President of
its youth organisation 1967–71. He was adviser to the Harmel cabinet
(1965), the Vanden Boeynants cabinet (1966) and with the Ministry of Community Relations
in 1968. He was President of the CVP 1972–79, a Member of Parliament
1974–91 and a Member of the senate 1991–94. His first term as
Prime Minister ended in his resignation in April 1981 when the Socialists in
his government refused to accept Martens’ economic plan to beat
Belgium’s rising unemployment and budgetary problems. In 1976 he was
co-founder of the European People’s Party (EPP). During his second
term as Prime Minister (1981–92), he introduced legislation promoting
regional autonomy in Belgium, but had difficulties in getting the bill
through Parliament. His government collapsed in 1991 and he became Minister
of State in 1992. He became the EPP’s President 1990–99 and also
acted as President of the EPP party group in the European Parliament
1994–99. From 1993 to 1996 he was President of the European Union of
Christian Democrats.

Mauroy, Pierre

The first Socialist Prime Minister of
the Fifth Republic (1981–84). Mauroy was born in 1928 at Cartignies.
He was General-Secretary of the Socialist Party’s (SFIO) Young
Socialists 1950–58. A secondary school teacher from 1952, he was a
branch General-Secretary of the main teacher’s union FEN
1955–59. In 1966, he became Deputy General-Secretary of the Socialist
Party, but party leader Guy Mollet backed Savary rather than Mauroy to
succeed him as leader of the newly formed Socialist Party (PS) in 1969.
Mauroy backed Mitterrand’s successful challenge to the party
leadership in 1971 and was rewarded with the party position of National
Co-ordination Secretary. An experienced and committed socialist, he
successfully integrated the different and sometimes conflicting factions
within the party, particularly the Christian and secular tendencies. Mauroy
clashed with Mitterrand after the left’s defeat in the 1978 elections
and was ousted from the ranks of the party leadership at the party congress
of 1979. However, in 1980, he was appointed as director of
Mitterrand’s presidential election campaign. Mauroy was appointed
Prime Minister in 1981 and headed three successive governments. The second
of these included four Communist ministers and carried through the major
reforms of the Mitterrand presidency. Mauroy resigned in 1984 after a
disagreement with Mitterrand over secondary school policy, but continued to
promote the unity of the left. In 1988, Mauroy succeeded Jospin as First
Secretary of the PS (a post he held until 1992) in spite of
Mitterrand’s preference for the moderniser Fabius.

[See also: Fabius; Jospin; Mitterrand; Mollet]

Mendès France, Pierre

A controversial figure whose political
career spanned three Republics, Mendès France was Prime Minister in the
Fourth Republic from June 1954 to February 1955. Born in Paris in 1907,
Mendès France was a brilliant student who became the youngest lawyer in
France at age 19. He later graduated in politics and took a doctorate in law
at 21. Politically active from an early age, he joined the Radical Party at
16. In 1932 he became the youngest Deputy in the Parliament and in 1938, as
Under-Secretary of State for the Treasury, the youngest member of a
government in the Third Republic. Falsely charged with desertion during the
Second World War, he escaped from prison to England, joined General de
Gaulle’s Free French air force and served with a bomber squadron
1942–43. He worked with de Gaulle in Algiers as ‘minister’
of finance in what was to become the Provisional Government of France in May
1944. In 1944 he led the French delegation to the 1944 Bretton Woods
conference on international monetary issues and participated in the creation of
the World Bank. In September 1944, after the liberation of Paris, he was
named by de Gaulle as Minister of the National Economy. Dynamic and
stubborn, he pursued unpopular anti-inflationary measures and currency
reform, but was opposed by Finance Minister René Pleven. De Gaulle
opted to support Pleven and Mendès France resigned in May 1945. He took
a principled stance, refusing a ministerial post in 1946 as he believed he
would not be permitted sufficient autonomy to carry out his duties, and
instead accepted numerous national and international economic assignments.
During his short premiership (1954–55), Mendès France launched a
radical programme. Serving also as Foreign Minister, he brought the war in
Indo-China to a close; he resolved an explosive situation in Tunisia by
granting its autonomy; allowed a vote in the National Assembly to decide an
entrenched controversy over the European Defence Community (the vote went
against the project, which was dropped); and helped to negotiate the terms
for German rearmament and entry into NATO. His bold handling of
controversial issues mobilised various forces against him and he was voted
out of office in February 1955, ostensibly over his Algerian policy. From
1955 to 1957 he tried to renovate the Radical Party, but failed, and
resigned as leader. After serving briefly as Minister without Portfolio
(1956) in Guy Mollet’s government, he remained in an opposition role
for the next twenty-five years. Mendès France opposed both the
institutional framework of the Fifth Republic and the way in which de Gaulle
came to power at the head of the new Republic, which he saw as illegitimate.
During the Fifth Republic, Mendès France associated briefly with
left-wing groups but was politically active largely on the basis of his
personal experience and reputation. During the 1970s, he devoted his
attention to trying to broker an agreement between Israel and the
Palestinians. Mendès France supported Mitterrand in the presidential
elections of 1981. He died in October 1982.

Mitterrand, François

Leader of the French Socialist Party
and President of France 1981–95. Mitterrand was born in Jarnac (in the
Charante region) in 1916. He studied law, and worked in law and publishing.
In the Second World War he became a prisoner-of-war in 1940, but escaped via
Algeria to London. He served in de Gaulle’s provisional government
until 1946, then became a member of the National Assembly, serving in
various capacities in eleven different governments during the Fourth
Republic. He played a leading role in various efforts to reorganise the
Socialists, and in 1971 became leader of the newly formed Socialist Party,
remaining leader until 1981. He was the losing candidate in the second round
of voting in the presidential elections of 1965 and 1974 (against de Gaulle
and d’Estaing). He defeated d’Estaing in 1981 to become the
first Socialist President of the Fifth Republic, and was re-elected in 1988.
In his second term he twice had to govern under conditions of cohabitation,
with a prime minister from the right wing as a consequence of the outcome of
elections to the National Assembly. Mitterrand had to confront rumours that
he had collaborated with the Vichy regime during the war and of corruption
within the ranks of his own party. He died in 1996.

Modrow, Hans

Head of government of the GDR
1989–90. Modrow was born in West Pomerania in 1928. He joined the SED
in 1949, involving himself at first especially in its youth organisation
(the Free German Youth), in which he became a full-time employee, moving
then to a staff position in the SED. He became head of the party
organisation in Dresden in 1973, but was always regarded as something of an
outsider in the party, and failed to attain positions within the party that
his experience and qualifications would seem to have deserved. This was
associated with a reputation in Dresden for resistance to, and criticism of,
some policies of the SED central committee in Berlin. Thus when the SED came
under pressure during the citizen movement protests in Autumn 1989, Modrow
was seen as a potential reformer who could rescue the party, and Krenz
persuaded him to take the post of Prime Minister. This post he retained
until the first democratic elections for the Volkskammer in March 1990, but
during his period in office he was seen as too reactionary for the times,
being opposed by the Round Table and by other parties within and outside his
coalition government. Following the reunification of Germany, Modrow became
a Member of the Bundestag for the PDS. Accusations of electoral manipulation
in Dresden in 1989 led to his trial and conviction in 1993. He later became
Honorary Chairman of the PDS.

[See also: Krenz; reunification of Germany*; Round
Table*]

Mollet, Guy

Secretary-General of the Socialist
Party (SFIO) 1946–69 and Prime Minister of France 1956–57,
Mollet played a key role in the transition between the French Fourth and
Fifth Republics. Mollet was born into a working-class family in Flers
(Normandy) in 1905 and was educated through a state scholarship. He joined
the Young Socialists in 1921 and the SFIO proper in 1923. A school teacher,
Mollet helped to found the union, the General Federation of the Teaching
Profession. During the Second World War he worked with the resistance and
was a German prisoner-of-war 1940–41. Elected Secretary-General of the
SFIO in 1946, he brought ideological and strategic change to the party. He
was elected to the first National Assembly of the Fourth Republic in 1946
and appointed Minister of State in Léon Blum’s government
1946–47, a post he returned to under Pleven in 1950 before becoming
Deputy Prime Minister 1950–51. After the parliamentary elections of
1956, Mollet became Prime Minister of a coalition government comprising
mainly Socialists and Radicals. His programme featured stabilising the
situation in Algeria and social welfare reforms, but mounting problems led
to his resignation in 1957. In 1958 Mollet was instrumental in bringing de
Gaulle’s Fifth Republic into being, believing that this was the only
way France could avoid a military dictatorship. Mollet was appointed
Minister of State in de Gaulle’s government, and helped to draw up the
new constitution of the Fifth Republic, but moved the Socialists into
opposition in 1959. By 1965, Mitterrand had emerged as the leading
individual on the left of the political spectrum. When the Socialists formed
a new party (PS) in 1969, Mollet resigned as Secretary-General and devoted
himself instead to his socialist research institute OURS. He died in
1975.

[See also: de Gaulle; Algerian conflict*; resistance
groups*]

Monnet, Jean-Marie

The key thinker behind French post-war
economic planning and the visionary strategist behind European integration, Jean
Monnet never held elected office, nor did he follow a regular civil service
career path. Monnet was born in Cognac in 1888, was apprenticed in London to
learn English, and at 18 became an international salesman for his
father’s wholesale brandy co-operative. Unfit for service in the First
World War, he helped to initiate the creation in 1916–18 of eight
Allied Executives co-ordinating scarce supplies of commodities and pooling
transport. After the war, he became Deputy Secretary-General of the new
League of Nations and was concerned with rehabilitation programmes. In 1938,
Monnet was co-opted by the Prime Minister, Edouard Daladier, to help with
preparations for the Second World War. He negotiated aeroplane orders with
the neutral USA and took a leading role in Anglo-French co-ordination. Sent
to the British Supply Council in Washington by Churchill, by 1941 Monnet was
acting as an adviser to Beaverbrook and Roosevelt, promoting war production.
Sent to Algiers to advise the Allies in North Africa, Monnet helped de
Gaulle to gain control of the French committee of national liberation. Back
in France, in 1946 Monnet took charge of the new, independent General
Planning Commission attached to the Prime Minister, where he devised the
‘Monnet Plan’ on investment priorities for economic
reconstruction through American funding. The plan was intended to modernise
France’s economic capacity, to be responsive to changing economic
needs and to integrate affected interests, including the trade unions. It
provided the foundations for French economic co-operation and competition
with Germany. In 1950, Monnet turned his attention to European integration,
preparing a plan for the future European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC),
which was promoted by the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman. Monnet
chaired the conference which produced the Treaty of Paris (18 April 1951)
formally establishing the ECSC. He also participated in plans for a European
Defence Community (EDC), abandoned when the French National Assembly refused
to ratify it. In spite of this setback, Monnet and the Belgian Foreign
Minister Spaak managed to maintain the momentum towards European economic
integration. In 1955, Monnet presented Spaak with plans for a European
Atomic Energy Community. Together with Dutch proposals for a Common Market,
this proposal culminated in the Rome Treaties of 1957, which established the
EEC and EURATOM. De Gaulle’s return to power in 1958 restored a
nationalist mentality to French politics and undermined Monnet’s
internationalist stance and his personal influence in France. In 1959 he
persuaded the USA to co-found the OECD. Monnet died in 1979.

Moro, Aldo

Prime Minister of Italy 1963–68,
1974–76, Moro was kidnapped and murdered by Red Brigade terrorists in
1978. Moro was born in 1916 in Maglie and studied at the University of Bari,
where he took part in Catholic student politics and gained a PhD in law in
1940. After the Second World War, Moro joined the Christian Democratic party
(DC) and was elected to Italy’s Constituent Assembly in 1946. Moro
took part in the drafting of the constitution which established the Republic
of Italy in June 1946. In 1948 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies and
became a leading member of the DC party group. He served as Under-Secretary
of State in de Gasperi’s government in May 1948. In 1955 he became
Minister of Justice and carried out a reform of the prison system. He was appointed
Minister of Education in May 1957 and in 1959 became leader of the DC. In
1963 he formed a centre-left government which he successfully steered and
reorganised until June 1968, when the Socialists refused to take part. He
then took the post of Foreign Minister until he again formed a coalition
government with the Republican Party. From February 1976 he maintained a
minority government in power until July 1976. He then became President of
the DC and it was anticipated that he might be chosen as President of the
Republic. However, on 16 March 1978, he was kidnapped by Red Brigade
terrorists, ‘tried’ and killed. His body was found in Rome on 9
May 1978.

[See also: de Gasperi; Red Brigades*]

Mussolini, Benito

Fascist dictator of Italy. Born in
1883 in the Romagna, Mussolini became a socialist agitator in his youth. He
fought in the First World War, then became a representative of an
ex-servicemen’s association. In 1919 he began to promote fascist
beliefs, based on radical nationalism and authoritarian rule, and engaged in
terrorising his former socialist allies. He became Prime Minister of Italy
following his ‘March on Rome’ by his blackshirted fascist
supporters, but soon turned this post into that of a dictator (Il Duce). He
then developed a policy of overseas expansion, to rival Hitler’s
territorial ambitions in Europe. The invasion of Abbysinia was followed by
engagement on the side of General Franco in the Spanish civil war, then the
occupation and annexation of Albania. He entered into a pact with Hitler
(the Axis pact). Joining in the Second World War once France had collapsed,
Mussolini’s military advances in Greece and North Africa were soon
followed by serious defeats. He was forced to resign from his position as
head of the government in 1943 and was then imprisoned. A daring glider
rescue from this imprisonment by German troops permitted Mussolini to set up
a puppet regime in German-occupied Italy, but as the war came to an end in
April 1945 Mussolini was caught by partisans when attempting to escape to
Switzerland, and was summarily hanged.

[See also: Franco; Hitler; Spanish civil war*]

Ollenhauer, Erich

Leader of the West German Social
Democratic Party (SPD) 1952–60. Born in Magdeburg in 1901, Ollenhauer
joined the SPD in 1916 and became a member of the party’s paid staff.
He was a member of the SPD contingent on the Parliamentary Council which
drafted the Basic Law, was elected to the Bundestag in 1949, and, following
the death of Schumacher, became party leader in 1952. He was the SPD
chancellor-candidate in the 1953 and 1957 Bundestag elections. His failure
in the 1957 election (when Adenauer secured an absolute majority of votes
and seats) and his discomfiture with the 1959 Bad Godesberg SPD reform
programme led to his resignation as party leader in 1960. He died in
1963.

[See also: Adenauer; Schumacher; Godesberg Programme*]

Paisley, Ian

Leader of the Democratic Unionist
Party (Northern Ireland). Paisley was born in Armagh in 1926. After a
theological education, he was ordained as minister in 1946 and became
involved in Unionist politics. He was a member of the Northern Ireland
Parliament at Stormont 1970–72, and of the Northern Ireland Assembly
1973–74. He has been an MP in the House of Commons since 1970 and was
elected to the new Northern Ireland Assembly in 1998. He was elected leader
of his party in 1979. Paisley has a reputation as an intemperate orator, an uncompromising
opponent of Northern Ireland political Catholicism and nationalism, a
propagator of fundamentalist Protestantism and a bitter critic of the
British government whenever proposals for a compromise settlement in
Northern Ireland are mooted. Paisley opposed the Sunningdale Agreement in
1972, for instance. His behaviour in the House of Commons has resulted in
his exclusion on several occasions.

[See also: Good Friday Agreement*; Stormont*]

Palme, Olaf

Prime Minister of Sweden 1969–76
and 1982 until his assassination in 1986. Palme was born in Stockholm in
1927. He studied law, but began a career in politics within the organisation
of the Swedish Social Democratic Labour Party. He was elected to the Swedish
Parliament in 1957 and from 1963 was appointed to several governmental
positions, before becoming party leader and Prime Minister in 1969. While
out of office between 1976 and 1981, he was a member of several
international commissions concerned with third-world development and
disarmament. His government undertook several important constitutional
reforms in Sweden, including making the Swedish Parliament unicameral and
eliminating almost entirely the political role of the monarch. He was killed
by gunfire from an unknown assailant in Stockholm in February 1986.

Papandreou, Andreas

Prime Minister of Greece 1981–89
and 1993–96. Papandreou was born in Chios in 1919, the son of the
former Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou. He studied law at the University
of Athens and became a Trotskyist critic of the dictatorship of Ioannis
Metaxas. Arrested and tortured in 1939, he left in 1940 for the USA, where
he studied at Columbia University and received a doctorate from Harvard in
1943. Papandreou took US citizenship, served in the US navy and began an
academic career in economics. He returned to Greece in 1959 and became
Director of the Centre of Economic Research. He renounced his American
citizenship in January 1964 and was elected to Parliament as a
representative of his father’s Centre Union Party. When Georgios
Papandreou became Prime Minister in 1964, his son Andreas became his chief
adviser. Andreas was an outspoken critic of the King and the military and
was forced to step down in November 1964 on charges of corruption. He was
reinstated in the Spring of 1965, but fell with his father’s
government in July 1965. When the military staged a coup in April 1967,
Andreas Papandreou was charged with high treason and was kept in solitary
confinement until he was released in an amnesty in December 1967. He went
into exile as an opponent of the junta, again working as an academic. He
founded the anti-junta Panhellenic Liberation Movement in 1968. Papandreou
returned to Greece in 1974 when the military government fell. He refused to
lead his father’s former party, the Centre Union Party, and instead
founded the Panhellenic Socialist Movement. For the rest of the 1970s,
Papandreou vigorously attacked the Karamanlis government. In the elections
of 1981, his Panhellenic Socialist Movement beat Rallis’ New
Democratic Party and Papandreou became Prime Minister. His government
introduced a series of socialist reforms. In 1988 his government’s
popularity fell and he was accused of corruption and the misuse of power. He
stepped down in 1989 after electoral defeat. Once his parliamentary immunity
was lifted, Papandreou was charged with corruption, but was acquitted in
January 1992. He led his party to an election victory in 1993, but his health
deteriorated from 1995, and he resigned as Prime Minister in January 1996.
He died later that year.

[See also: Karamanlis]

Pétain, Marshal [See: Vichy regime*]

Pflimlin, Pierre

Prime Minister of France 1958.
Pflimlin was born in Roubaix in 1907. He was educated in Mulhouse (in
Alsace) and universities in Paris and Strasbourg and qualified as a lawyer.
He was a prisoner-of-war in 1940, and on release joined the resistance.
Elected to the National Assembly in 1946 as a Republican Party deputy, he
became a minister in many of the – usually short-lived –
cabinets of the Fourth Republic. After his very brief term as last Prime
Minister of the Fourth Republic (except for de Gaulle himself ), Pflimlin
served in de Gaulle’s Fifth Republic government in 1962. He served as
mayor of Strasbourg from 1959 until 1984, and was a Member of the European
Parliament 1979–89, holding the office of President of the Parliament
1984–87. He was an enthusiastic supporter of European integration. He
died in 2000.

[See also: de Gaulle; Algerian conflict*; resistance
groups*]

Pöhl, Karl Otto

President of the German Federal Bank
(Bundesbank) 1980–91. Pöhl was born in Hanover in 1929. After an
early career as a journalist, he became Vice-President of the Bundesbank in
1977, and became President in 1980. Though a member of the Social Democratic
Party, he resisted several measures of the SPD–Liberal coalition
designed to decrease unemployment through state expenditures. Pöhl is
particularly remembered for his criticism in 1990 of the plan by the Kohl
government for an exchange rate of 2:1 (and parity for some transactions)
when the German Democratic Republic and the German Federal Republic entered
into a Treaty of Economic and Monetary Union. Pöhl warned that such a
generous exchange rate would prove to be inflationary and would damage the
East German economy.

[See also: Kohl; Bundesbank*]

Pompidou, Georges

Prime Minister, then President, of the
Fifth French Republic. Pompidou was born in the Auvergne in 1911. After
studying classics, he became a secondary school teacher. Involved in the
resistance during the Second World War, he joined de Gaulle’s staff in
1944, and held various political appointments before entering banking in
1955. He returned to politics when the Fifth Republic was established in
1958, and was principal negotiator of the Évian Agreements, ending
French involvement in the Algerian struggle for independence. De Gaulle made
Pompidou Prime Minister in 1962. In 1968, Pompidou played a major role in
calming the riots and protests initiated by the students and workers. De
Gaulle held Pompidou responsible for what he saw as unwise concessions to
the workers and dismissed him as Prime Minister that same year. However,
following de Gaulle’s sudden resignation as President in 1969,
Pompidou was elected as de Gaulle’s successor. Pompidou set about
extending the powers of the president into economic and other domestic
policy areas, in a drive to modernise the French economy, especially in
relation to its infrastructure. He died in office in 1974.

[See also: de Gaulle; Évian Agreements*; resistance
groups*]

Poujade, Pierre-Marie

Born in 1920 in Saint-Céré
(Lot), Poujade was a political activist who challenged processes of modernisation in France.
Brought up as a monarchist, he at first supported the Vichy regime. However,
by 1942 Poujade was disillusioned by Vichy’s subservience to the
Germans and tried to leave France for Spain. He was arrested but was freed
in 1943. After the war he went back to Saint-Céré and set up a
wholesale book business. By the early 1950s such small businesses, a strong
feature of France’s economy, were threatened by the rise of big
business. In 1953, Poujade began to organise demonstrations against the way
the complicated tax system was implemented with respect to smaller
businesses. In 1954 he formed the pressure group, the Union for the
Protection of Businesses and Craftsmen, (UDCA), which soon took on a wider
protest role, attacking aspects of modernisation including foreign
influences in France, republicanism, bureaucracy, the dominance of Paris and
urbanisation. In 1955 Poujade formed a political party, the Union and
Fraternity of the French (UFF) and conducted major rallies throughout
France. In the 1956 elections, the UFF gained 52 seats in the National
Assembly. However, the party was organisationally and electorally unstable,
and did not survive the transition to the Fifth Republic in 1958 as a
credible political force. Poujade remained a wild card in French politics
until the mid-1960s, when he became reconciled to the Fifth Republic and
even became adviser to Pompidou on small businesses. He launched a further
party (UDI) for the 1979 European elections, but it was not successful. In
1981, he supported Mitterrand’s candidacy for the presidential
elections.

[See also: Mitterrand; Vichy regime*]

Prodi, Romano

Prime Minister of Italy 1996–98
and President of the European Commission. Born in 1939 in Scandiano, Prodi
studied at the Catholic University of Milan. He became Professor of
Economics and Industrial Policy at the University of Bologna in 1971. He was
Minister of Industry 1978–79. During the 1980s and 1990s he held
high-ranking posts related to economic and industrial research and has
published widely on such issues. In 1995, following the public collapse in
confidence in the traditional parties, he founded the Olive Tree, a
coalition of centre-left parties, and after the electoral success of the
coalition he became Prime Minister 1996–98. In 1999 he became
President of the European Commission.

[See also: Tangentopoli*]

Rau, Johannes

President of the Federal Republic of
Germany from 1999, and Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW)
1978–97. Rau was born in Wuppertal in 1931. He went into a career in
the book trade. He joined the Social Democratic Party in 1957, and was
elected to the NRW Land Parliament in 1958. After serving as lord mayor of
his home town, Wuppertal, he became a minister in the NRW Land government
from 1970 until his election by his party in 1978 as NRW Prime Minister. He
led his party to a series of electoral successes in NRW, making what had
previously been a marginal Land for his party into one which provided the
SPD with absolute majorities. He was SPD chancellor-candidate in the 1987
federal election, but was unable to attract many additional votes to his
party. He served in several senior positions in the national SPD
organisation, becoming a deputy chairman in 1982. He ran as SPD candidate
for the office of federal president in 1994, but without success. However,
in 1999, supported by the large number of SPD Members of the Bundestag
elected in 1998, Rau was elected President of the republic on the second ballot. Rau
has always had close links to the Protestant church in West Germany.

Robinson, Mary

Former President of Ireland and UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights. Robinson was born in 1944 in County
Mayo, Ireland. She studied law at Trinity College, Dublin and Harvard
University. She then practised as a lawyer and became a professor at Trinity
College. She was a member of the Irish Senate 1969–89. In 1990 she was
elected as President of Ireland and served until 1997. As President, she
lent her support to several measures promoting a more liberal society in
Ireland. She was then appointed as UN Commissioner for Human Rights, in
which role she has been involved in various crises all over the world, for
example in East Timor.

Rocard, Michel

French Prime Minister 1988–91,
Rocard was born in 1930 at Courbevoie (Seine). He studied at the Institute
of Political Studies in Paris and at the National College of Administration.
He pursued a dual career as an inspector of finances and in the ‘new
left’ in politics, using the pseudonym Georges Servet for his
political activities until the mid-1960s. Rocard was National Secretary of
the Association of Socialist Students 1955–56. The group was allied to
the Socialist Party (SFIO), but Rocard split with the party over the Mollet
government’s Algerian policy. In 1958, he became a member of the
Autonomous Socialist Party (PSA) which joined with the Unified Socialist
Party (PSU) in 1960. He was National Secretary of the PSU 1967–73, the
youngest leader of an organised political party. Opposed to violence, he did
not join the street protests of 1968, but later became spokesman of that
movement. In 1974 Rocard supported Mitterrand’s presidential campaign
and joined the new Socialist Party (PS) later that year, following the
party’s integration of the bulk of the non-communist left of the party
spectrum. He soon became the leading voice of the new left or
‘realist’ social democracy within the PS and the only serious
rival to Mitterrand for the party’s leadership. Popular with the
public in the late 1970s, in the 1980s he had to contend with a new
generation of ‘Mitterrandists’, particularly Fabius and Jospin.
Rocard was Minister of the Plan 1981–83 and Minister of Agriculture
1983 but resigned in 1985 in protest over the PS’s tactical decision
to introduce proportional representation for the 1986 parliamentary
elections. He distanced himself from the party to prepare his candidacy for
the presidential elections of 1988, but withdrew when Mitterrand declared he
would stand. Rocard became Prime Minister of France (1988–91). He was
Secretary of the Socialist Party 1993–94 and has been a Member of the
European Parliament since 1994.

[See also: Fabius; Jospin; Mitterrand; Mollet; Algerian
conflict*]

Rohwedder, Detlev

Head of the Treuhandgesellschaft
(Trustee Agency) responsible for privatisation and restructuring of East
German business enterprises following reunification. Rohwedder was born in
Gotha in 1932. He studied law at the Universities of Mainz and Hamburg, then
was employed by various business companies. He joined the SPD in 1969, and
that same year was appointed as the chief civil servant (State Secretary) in
the Ministry of Economics when the SPD–FDP coalition was formed. He
retained that post until 1978. In 1990 he was appointed Chairman of the
Treuhandgesellschaft. In 1991 he was assassinated by a bomb set by the Red
Army faction.

[See also: Treuhandanstalt*]

Salazar, Antonio

Prime Minister of Portugal
1932–68. Salazar was born in Santa Comba Dao in 1889. He studied
economics and finance at university, and became a professor of economics in
1916, before entering politics. He was elected to Parliament in 1921 and
became Minister of Finance in 1926 and again from 1928. He ruled as a
dictator. He maintained Portugal’s neutral stance in the Spanish civil
war and the Second World War, though he gave support to Franco. He set
himself firmly against the introduction of steps towards autonomy for
Portugal’s overseas colonies. He reluctantly agreed to allow a
multi-party system to develop after the Second World War, though the secret
police kept opposition activities in check. He survived a number of attempts
to overthrow him and his regime by communists and elements of the military.
He retired on grounds of ill-health in 1968 and died in 1970.

[See also: Armed Forces Movement*]

Santer, Jacques

Prime Minister of Luxembourg
1984–89 and 1989–94 and President of the European Commission
1994–99. Born in 1937 in Wasserbillig, Santer studied at the
Universities of Paris and Strasbourg and at the Paris Institute of Political
Studies. He became an advocate at the Luxembourg Court of Appeal
1961–65. He worked with the Ministry of Labour and Social Security
1963–65 and was a government attaché 1965–66. He was
President of the Christian Social Party 1974–82. He was Secretary of
State for Cultural and Social Affairs 1972–74. He was a member of the
Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies 1974–79 and of the European Parliament
1975–79, becoming its Vice-President in 1975–77. He then
returned to Luxembourg politics, acting as Minister of Labour, of Finance
and of Social Security 1979–84. While Prime Minister he was
simultaneously Minister of State and of Finance 1984–89 and Minister
of State, of Cultural Affairs and of the Treasury and Financial Affairs
1989–94. Santer became President of the European Commission in 1994
but a series of scandals led to his resignation, together with his
Commission team, in 1998.

Scalfaro, Oscar

President of Italy 1992–99,
Scalfaro promoted the ongoing process of constitutional reform in Italy
during the 1980s. Born in 1918 in Novara, Scalfaro studied at the Catholic
University of Milan. He was elected Christian Democratic (DC) deputy for
Turin-Novara-Vercelli in 1948. He played a leadership role in the DC, acting
as Secretary, then Vice-Chair of the parliamentary party group and
participating in the party’s national council. During de
Gasperi’s leadership, Scalfaro joined the DC central office. He was
Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Labour and Social Security in
the Fanfani government, Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Justice and
Under-Secretary at the Ministry of the Interior 1959–62. He was
Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation in the Moro, Leone and Andreotti
governments, Minister of Education in the second Andreotti government, and
Minister of the Interior 1983–87. In April 1987 he tried to form a
government, but was not successful. He became President of the Republic on
28 May 1992.

[See also: Andreotti; de Gasperi; Leone; Moro;
Tangentopoli*]

Scharping, Rudolf

Former leader of the German Social
Democratic Party and chancellor-candidate in the 1994 Bundestag election.
Scharping was born in Niederelbert in 1947. After studying law, politics and
sociology at the University of Bonn, he became an assistant to two Members of the
Bundestag (1969–75) and was Land Chair of the Young Socialists
1969–74, and Deputy Chair of the federal Young Socialists
1974–76. He was elected to the Rhineland-Pfalz Land Parliament in
1975, remaining a Member until 1994. He served as Chair of the Land
parliamentary party from 1985 to 1991, Chair of the Rhineland-Pfalz SPD
1985–94 and Minister-President 1991–94. Elected to the Bundestag
in 1994, he became leader of the SPD Bundestag party group, a post he held
until the 1998 election. He was elected leader of the SPD in 1993 but his
failure to win the 1994 Bundestag election and poor Land election results
after that election led to a successful challenge by Lafontaine at the 1995
party conference. Following the 1998 election, as a result of which the SPD
formed a government with the Greens, Scharping was unsuccessful in his
efforts to retain the leadership of the parliamentary party, and instead was
persuaded to become Minister of Defence.

[See also: Lafontaine]

Scheel, Walter

Foreign Minister of the Federal
Republic of Germany, leader of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and federal
President. Scheel was born in 1919 in Solingen. He served in the German air
force during the Second World War, afterwards pursuing a business career. He
joined the FDP and entered local politics before his election to the
Bundestag in 1953. He was one of the group of young FDP members whose
campaign in North Rhine-Westphalia in 1956 resulted in the termination of
the Land governing coalition of the FDP and CDU, and its replacement by a
coalition with the SPD, in protest at Adenauer’s proposed electoral
system changes. He became a deputy leader of the FDP in 1958, and was
elected as leader in 1968, taking the FDP into coalition with the SPD after
the Bundestag election of 1969. As Foreign Minister in the Brandt
government, Scheel played a significant role in Brandt’s Ostpolitik.
Scheel resigned as Foreign Minister and leader of his party in 1974 on
health grounds, and was elected as federal President that same year, serving
one term (1974–79).

Schmid, Carlo

Prominent politician in the West
German Social Democratic Party after the Second World War. Schmid was born
in 1896 in Perpignan, in southern France. He was a lawyer by training,
becoming a professor of law and then of political science. He served as
Minister of Justice in the Land of Württemberg-Hohenzollern
1947–50, and as a member of the SPD delegation to the Parliamentary
Council which drafted the Basic Law 1948–49. As a member of the
Praesidium of the SPD Schmid had great influence on the drafting and
adoption of the Godesberg Programme. He was a Member of the Bundestag
1949–72, and played a leading role in the parliamentary party of the
SPD and in Bundestag committees, as well as acting as a Vice-President of
the Bundestag 1949–66 and 1969–72. He served as Minister
responsible for co-ordination with the Länder in the grand coalition
(1966–69). He was also author of several distinguished books on
political and historical topics, and did much to foster Franco-German
relations. He died in 1979.

[See also: Godesberg Programme*; grand coalition*]

Schmidt, Helmut

Chancellor of the Federal Republic of
Germany 1974–82. Born in Hamburg in 1918, Schmidt served in the German
army in the
Second World War and was awarded the Iron Cross. He then attended Hamburg
University, and joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1946. He was
employed as a manager by the city government after graduation. First elected
to the Bundestag in 1953, he resigned in 1962 to become a minister in the
Hamburg Land government, where his actions during the severe 1962 flooding
of the city were praised. He returned to the Bundestag in 1965, and,
following service as Chairman of the SPD parliamentary party group during
the ‘grand coalition’, became Minister of Defence in the Brandt
coalition in 1969. When Schiller resigned in 1972 as Finance and Economics
Minister, Schmidt took those ministries, then served as Finance Minister
after the Bundestag election in 1972 until 1974. In 1974 he was the
undisputed successor as Chancellor, after Brandt resigned that office in the
wake of the Guillaume scandal. As Chancellor, Schmidt was effective and
efficient, but, with Brandt remaining as party leader, was not successful in
integrating the various factions in the SPD. In particular, the hostile
attitudes of his own left wing towards defence and economic policies led to
a breach within the coalition. The FDP’s decision to support Kohl (the
leader of the CDU) in a constructive vote of no confidence against Schmidt
in October 1982 led to the replacement of Schmidt’s government by a
coalition of Christian Democrats and the FDP. Schmidt in political
retirement took on a role as elder statesman, and from 1983 became involved
in the editorship of the news weekly: Die Zeit.

Schönhuber, Franz

Co-founder and former leader of the
German Republican party. Schonhüber was born in Trostberg (Bavaria) in
1923. In the Second World War he served as a member of the Waffen-SS (the
military arm of the SS). After the war he commenced a career in journalism,
which led to an important post with the Bavarian broadcasting service,
including having his own talk-show, but was dismissed because of public and
media reaction to his memoirs (published in 1981) in which he defended the
Waffen-SS and the ‘idealism’ of its members. In 1983 he was a
co-founder of the Republican party, a breakaway party of former CSU
politicians, which soon developed a radical right-wing identity and
anti-foreigner rhetoric once Schönhuber became Chairman. The
Republicans had surprising successes in the Berlin Land election and
European parliamentary election of 1989 (Schönhuber himself serving as
an MEP until 1994) and in the Baden-Württemberg Land election in 1992.
Schönhuber lost the chairmanship of the Republicans in 1994 and
resigned from the party in 1995. He remained active in far-right political
circles, and was a candidate for the German People’s Party (DVU) in
the 1998 Bundestag election.

[See also: xenophobia*]

Schröder, Gerhard

Chancellor of the Federal Republic of
Germany since 1998 and leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) since
1999. Schröder was born in 1944 in Mossenberg, near Detmold. He studied
law at the University of Göttingen. He joined the SPD in 1963, and in
1986 became leader of the SPD parliamentary group in the Lower Saxony Land
Parliament. In 1989 he was elected to the Praesidium of the SPD, and in 1990
he became Minister President of Lower Saxony, winning the elections in 1994
and 1998 also. Though he had lost to Scharping in the membership ballot for
the post of party leader in 1993, his electoral successes in Lower Saxony made him the
obvious choice to be chancellor-candidate for the 1998 Bundestag election.
He led his party to an overwhelming electoral victory in that election, and
formed a coalition with the Greens. In 1999 he replaced Lafontaine as party
leader, after Lafontaine resigned from his governmental and party
positions.

[See also: Lafontaine; Scharping]

Schumacher, Kurt

Leader of the Social Democratic Party
of West Germany after the Second World War. Schumacher was born in Prussia
in 1895. His wounds in the First World War resulted in the amputation of an
arm. He studied law and political science at university. He then involved
himself in socialist politics in the Weimar Republic, being elected to the
Reichstag in 1930. He spent much of the Hitler period in concentration
camps. Involving himself in the revival of the SPD even before the Second
World War had ended, Schumacher became a leading politician in the British
zone of occupation. He vehemently opposed the scheme in the Soviet
occupation zone to merge the SPD and the Communist Party, rejecting it for
the western zones. He was elected leader of the West German SPD in 1946. The
result of the Bundestag election in 1949 meant that the SPD was in
opposition, and Schumacher, as leader of the opposition, criticised many of
Adenauer’s policies, especially concerning the market economy and
Adenauer’s preference for western integration rather than the pursuit
of German reunification. Schumacher died in 1952.

[See also: Adenauer; Hitler]

Schuman, Robert

Schuman held high office in France,
but is best known for his work for European integration. Schuman was born in
Luxembourg in 1886, grew up in Metz (then German) and studied law at Bonn,
Munich and Berlin. When Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France in 1918,
Schuman entered French politics, being elected to Parliament in 1919 as a
christian democrat. In 1940 he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for
Refugees in Reynaud’s war cabinet. After briefly supporting
Pétain, Schuman resigned from the Vichy government and forged links
with the resistance instead. After the Second World War Schuman joined the
new christian democratic party: the Mouvement Républicain Populaire
(MRP) and was re-elected to Parliament. He was Minister for Finance in the
governments of Bidault (1946) and Ramadier (1947). He became Prime Minister
(1947–48) under conditions of financial crisis and industrial unrest.
From 1948 to 1953 Schuman was Minister for Foreign Affairs in ten successive
governments, faced with the task of restraining Germany in the context of
European co-operation. In May 1950 he adopted Monnet’s plan to merge
the French and German coal and steel industries. This ‘Schuman
Plan’ led to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community
(ECSC) and eventually the EEC. His close association with the failed
‘Pleven Plan’ for a European Defence Community ended his spell
as Foreign Minister in 1953. Schuman died in 1963.

Smith, Iain Duncan [See: Duncan Smith, Iain]

Smith, John

Leader of the British Labour Party
from 1992 until his death in 1994. John Smith was born in 1938, and
qualified as a lawyer. He became an MP in 1970, and held office in the Wilson and Callaghan
governments. Having held various senior posts in the opposition’s
‘shadow cabinet’ from 1979 onwards, he was elected as party
leader in succession to Neil Kinnock, following Kinnock’s resignation
after the election of 1992. Smith continued and developed some of the
processes of reform of the Labour Party’s policies, image and
organisation which had commenced under Kinnock’s leadership, and which
were continued by Tony Blair.

[See also: Blair; Callaghan; Kinnock; Wilson]

Soares, Mário

Prime Minister of Portugal three times
1976–85; President of Portugal 1986–96. Soares was born in 1924
in Lisbon. His father was João Soares, a liberal who had served in the
republican government overthrown by a military coup in 1926. Mário
Soares studied at the University of Lisbon, where he founded the United
Democratic Youth Movement in 1946, and, later, at the Sorbonne in Paris. An
active opponent of Salazar’s dictatorship, Mário Soares was
jailed 12 times on political grounds. He was first arrested for
anti-government activities in 1947. In 1958 Soares was active in the
unsuccessful presidential campaign of the opposition candidate General
Delgado. When Delgado was murdered in Spain in 1965, Soares acted as the
lawyer for his family and attracted international attention by revealing how
Salazar’s secret police were implicated in the crime. He was deported
to São Tomé March–November 1968 and went into exile in
France during the early 1970s. In West Germany in 1973, he founded the
Portuguese Socialist Party and was its Secretary-General until 1986. Soares
represented the Portuguese Socialists at various European socialist
congresses and was the Portuguese representative to the International League
of Human Rights. After the coup of April 1974, Soares returned to Portugal.
As Minister of Foreign Affairs 1974–75, he led negotiations on the
independence of the Portuguese overseas colonies of Guinea-Bissau,
Mozambique and Angola. He was Vice-President of the Socialist International
1976–86 and its honorary president thereafter. The Socialists won a
majority in the Constituent Assembly elections in 1975, but a tense period
followed when the leftist military at first refused to acknowledge the
result. In further elections of April 1976, the Socialists again won a
majority of seats and Soares became Prime Minister until 1978, and again
1983–85. During his period in office he pursued negotiations leading
to Portuguese membership of the European Community and signed the Treaty of
Accession in 1985. In 1986 he became President of Portugal. He has held
numerous other national and international positions.

[See also: Salazar; Armed Forces Movement*]

Soustelle, Jacques

Leading member of the French
‘Secret Army’ opposed to de Gaulle’s Algerian policies.
Soustelle was born in 1912. He worked closely with de Gaulle during the
Second World War and its immediate aftermath. He was General Secretary of
the RPF, de Gaulle’s party after the war. He served as Governor of
Algeria, but his intemperate statements concerning Algeria led to his recall
in 1956. He supported the recall of de Gaulle and the creation of the Fifth
Republic, serving in de Gaulle’s first government. After his exclusion
from the government following riots in Algeria in 1960, Soustelle joined the
leadership of the ‘Secret Army’, and was exiled in 1962, only
returning to France when pardoned after the 1968 student riots.

[See also: de Gaulle; Algerian conflict*; May Events*]

Spaak, Paul-Henri

Prime Minister of Belgium
1938–39, March 1946, 1947–49, and leading international
politician. Spaak was born into a wealthy family of political activists in
1899 in Schaerbeek. He spent two years as a German prisoner-of-war during
the First World War. After the war, he graduated in law from the
Université Libre de Bruxelles. He joined the Socialist Party in the
1920s and in 1932 he was elected to the Belgian Chamber of Deputies, where
he led the Socialists’ left faction. He served in ministerial posts in
1935–36 before becoming Prime Minister in 1938. When Germany occupied
Belgium, he fled to London and acted as Foreign Minister in the Belgian
government-in-exile. After the liberation, Spaak returned to Belgium as
Deputy Prime Minister, but also took an active role in European and
international politics. Leading the Belgian delegation to the United Nations
(UN) Conference in 1945, he helped to draft the UN charter and served as the
first President of the United Nations General Assembly in 1946. Spaak
promoted the formation of the Benelux customs union between Belgium, the
Netherlands and Luxembourg and later played a leading role in the creation
of the European Common Market in March 1957. He was Secretary-General of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) 1957–61, after which he
returned to Belgian politics as Foreign Minister. He welcomed
Britain’s first application to join the EEC and was angered by the
French veto on British membership in 1963. He worked to ease tense relations
between Belgium and its former colony, the African Congo. When he retired
from politics in 1966, Spaak continued to work as a commercial international
adviser. He died in 1972.

[See also: de Gaulle; Benelux*]

Spring, Dick

Irish Foreign Minister and leader of
the Irish Labour Party. Spring was born in Tralee in 1950. He studied and
practised law before entering the Irish Parliament in 1981. He served as
Deputy Prime Minister in coalition governments in 1982–87 and
1993–97; in the second of those coalitions he was Foreign Minister. He
was leader of the Irish Labour Party 1982–97.

Springer, Axel

German publisher and media
entrepreneur. Springer was born in Altona, near Hamburg, in 1912. In the
period immediately after the Second World War he began his career as a
newspaper publisher, founding a number of newspapers and magazines,
including in 1952 the enormously successful Bild tabloid daily paper,
and acquiring the respected Die Welt newspaper in 1953. The student
movement which developed in the late 1960s targeted Springer as a
‘monopoly capitalist’ because of his ownership of a large share
of the newspaper and magazine markets. Among other incidents such as
blockades of distribution centres to prevent circulation of his
publications, a bomb attack on the Hamburg headquarters of the Springer
companies in 1972 wounded 17 people. Springer was unremitting in his
critiques of the left-wing-dominated student movement, promoted the idea of
German reunification and the illegitimacy of the GDR regime, and defended
his position in the publishing market against those who claimed his
dominance should be weakened by new legal constraints. Springer expanded
into broadcasting, including involvement in the Sat–1 commercial
television channel. He was generous in his contributions to charities,
including to various charitable causes in Israel. He died in 1985.

[See also: May Events*]

Steel, David

Leader of the British Liberal Party
1976–88, when it merged with the Social Democratic Party to become the
Liberal Democratic Party. Steel was born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, in 1938.
Following study at Edinburgh University, Steel became a journalist, then was
elected to the House of Commons in a by-election in 1965. He became well
known following the success of his 1967 Private Member’s bill to
reform legal restrictions on abortion. After serving as chief whip of his
party, he was elected leader in 1976 following the resignation of Thorpe
(Grimond, the former leader, serving as interim leader). In 1977 he took his
party into an alliance with Callaghan’s Labour government that was
less than a formal coalition, and seemed to bring little counter-rewards to
the Liberal Party in return for guaranteeing Callaghan a majority in the
House of Commons. This move was criticised within and outside Steel’s
own party ranks. It resulted in electoral defeats for his party before and
after the dissolution of that alliance in 1978. In 1983 he succeeded Roy
Jenkins as leader of the Liberal–SDP electoral alliance. He decided
not to seek leadership of the Liberal Democrat Party at the time of the
merger between the Liberals and the SDP in 1988. In 2000 he became the first
Speaker of the new Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.

[See also: Callaghan; Grimond; Jenkins; Thorpe; Lib–Lab
pact*]

Stoiber, Edmund

Leader of the Christian Social Union
in Germany and Prime Minister of Bavaria. Stoiber was born in Oberaudorf in
1941. He studied law at Munich University and became a civil servant in the
Bavarian Land government. He has been a Member of the Bavarian Land
Parliament since 1974. He served as General-Secretary of the CSU
1982–86. He was appointed Interior Minister in the Bavarian government
in 1988, and served until 1993, when he became Prime Minister of Bavaria. He
has been leader of the CSU since 1999. He became the chancellor-candidate
for the 2002 Bundestag election on 11 January 2002, following the
announcement by Merkel that she would not seek that position herself.

Stoph, Willi

Head of the government (in effect,
Prime Minister) of the German Democratic Republic 1964–73 and
1976–89. Stoph was born in Berlin in 1914. He joined the Communist
Party of Germany in 1931. After military service in the Second World War, he
made a career within the communist Socialist Unity Party (SED) in the Soviet
zone of occupation, then in the GDR. He served as head of state
1973–76. He represented the GDR in talks with Brandt in Erfurt and
Kassel in 1970, as a prelude to later steps towards improving relations
between the two German states. He was dismissed as Prime Minister in
November 1989 during the last days of the communist regime, and was
succeeded in that office by Hans Modrow. Court cases following reunification
against Stoph on grounds of corruption in office and responsibility for the
‘shoot-to-kill’ orders concerning would-be escapees from the GDR
were later dropped, mainly on grounds of his age and state of health.

[See also: Brandt; Modrow; German question*; Ostpolitik*]

Strauss, Franz Josef

Leader of the CSU, Prime Minister of
Bavaria and Minister in the governments of Adenauer and Kiesinger. Strauss
was born in Munich in 1915. Following university studies of history and
economics, and from 1943 military service in the Second World War, he was one of the
founders of the CSU in 1945 and became its General Secretary in 1949, then
its Deputy Chairman in 1952. He was elected as Chairman in 1961, a post he
retained until his death, and was largely responsible for consolidating,
then expanding, the party within Bavaria and in its relations with the CDU.
He was elected to the Bundestag in 1949, and was appointed to
Adenauer’s government in 1953, becoming Defence Minister in 1956.
Forced to leave the government because of his responsibility for the
improper imposition of sanctions on the magazine Der Spiegel in 1962,
he was kept out of the Erhard government by FDP insistence. In the grand
coalition led by Chancellor Kiesinger, Strauss became Finance Minister
(1966–69). Strauss was the unsuccessful chancellor-candidate of the
Christian Democrats in the 1980 Bundestag election. When the Christian
Democrats returned to government in 1982, the insistence of the FDP that
Strauss should not displace Genscher as Foreign Minister effectively kept
Strauss out of the cabinet, as he would accept no other position. He instead
remained Prime Minister of Bavaria, a post he had taken in 1979. Strauss was
seen as being on the right of the Christian Democrats, and his various
independent initiatives in foreign policy (such as his visit to China in
1972) and in German–German relations (his unauthorised promises of
credits to the GDR government on a visit in 1983) earned him publicity, but
were also grounds for criticism and concern even within his own party. He
was also involved in scandals concerning possible improper dealings with the
arms trade. Strauss died in 1988.

[See also: Adenauer; Erhard; Kiesinger; Spiegel Affair*]

Suárez González, Adolfo, Duke of

Prime Minister of Spain 1976–81
during the transition to democracy in Spain and leader of the Union of the
Democratic Centre (UCD) 1977–82. Born in 1932 in Cebreros in the
Province of Avila, Suárez studied at the University of Salamanca and
received a doctorate from the University of Madrid. He became governor of
Segovia in 1969, then took high-ranking positions in radio and television
and in tourism. He was involved with the Falange until 1975, when he founded
the UCD and became its leader. He was appointed Prime Minister by King Juan
Carlos in 1976 and his post-Franco government effected the transition to
democracy in Spain. It allowed the formation of political parties and
organised free elections. Suárez’ UCD won the elections of 1977
and 1979 but then his popularity fell over his handling of the economy and
the issue of Basque terrorism. He resigned in January 1981, nominating Calvo
Sotelo as his successor. The King named him Duke of Suárez later that
year. In 1982 he left the UCD to form and lead another party, the Democratic
and Social Centre (CDS) but the party was not an electoral success and he
stepped down as leader in 1991. He was President of the International
Liberals 1988–91.

[See also: Franco; Juan Carlos, King]

Thatcher, Margaret

British Prime Minister and leader of
the Conservative Party. Born Margaret Roberts in Grantham in 1925, she
studied chemistry at Oxford University, then qualified as a lawyer. She was
first elected to the House of Commons in 1959. As well as holding various
posts within the Conservative ‘shadow cabinets’ 1967–70
and from 1974, she was Minister of Education in Heath’s government
1970–74. She replaced Heath as party leader in 1975, and became Prime
Minister following the 1979 general election. She led her party to victories
in the 1983 and 1987 elections also. Her policy strategy became increasingly
right wing, emphasising market forces and national sovereignty. This
strategy, revealed in policies which limited trade union power, promoted the
return of state-owned commercial activities, such as the telephone service
and power supply, to private ownership, restricted local government autonomy
and defended British interests in negotiations within the European Community
(EC), was given the label: ‘Thatcherism’. She became extremely
popular as a result of the successful outcome of the Falklands War,
overturning Argentinean invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982. However,
her increasingly strident criticism of the EC and the unpopularity of
policies such as a new system of local government taxation (the ‘poll
tax’) led to growing discontent with her leadership within her own
party. After an unsuccessful challenge to her in a leadership election in
November 1989, another challenge was mounted in 1990. Thatcher narrowly
failed to obtain sufficient votes on a first round of balloting to win that
election, and was persuaded not to remain in the contest for a second round,
since it was almost certain she would be defeated. She entered the House of
Lords in 1992.

[See also: Heath; Falklands War*; poll tax*]

Thorez, Maurice

Leader of the PCF 1930–64.
Thorez was born in 1900 in Noyelles-Godault. He was a founding member of the
PCF in 1920. He was elected to the French Parliament in 1932, and in 1936
agreed to participate in the ‘Popular Front’ government led by
Blum. He refused to fight in the Second World War and deserted from the
army, at a time when the USSR was still linked to Nazi Germany by the Treaty
between Germany and the USSR. Thorez went to Moscow, and only returned to
France after its liberation. Apart from a brief period when Thorez was a
member of a coalition government (1946–47) he and his party took a
stance of uncompromising opposition to the Fourth Republic regime, using
links to the trade unions to promote strikes. He was a convinced supporter
of Stalin, and ensured that the PCF kept rigidly to a Stalinist political
programme and Stalinist organisation of the party itself. He died in
1964.

[See also: nazism*; popular front*]

Thorn, Gaston

Prime Minister of Luxembourg
1974–79 and a leading European liberal, President of the European
Commission 1981–84. Thorn was born in 1928 in Luxembourg and studied
at the Universities of Montpellier, Lausanne and Paris. He became President
of the Luxembourg National Union of Students. A Member of the Luxembourg
Parliament since 1959, he was also a Member of the European Parliament
1959–69, where he was Vice-President of the Liberal group. He became
President of the Democratic Party of Luxembourg in 1961. Prime Minister and
Minister of State 1974–79, from 1969 to 1980 he also held ministerial
responsibility (often overlapping) in foreign affairs and foreign trade;
physical education and sport; national economy and the middle classes; and
justice, as well as acting as Deputy Prime Minister 1979–80. In tandem
with his national political career, he was a leading figure in the Liberal
International and in European politics. He was President of the Liberal
International 1970–82; President of the 30th Session of the UN General
Assembly 1975–76; President of the Federation of Liberal and
Democratic Parties of the European Community 1976–80; and President of
the European Commission 1981–84.

Thorpe, Jeremy

Leader of the British Liberal Party
1967–76. Thorpe was born in London in 1929. Educated at Oxford
University, he became a lawyer before becoming an MP in 1959. He remained in
the House of Commons until 1979. He was elected as leader of his party in
succession to Grimond, but resigned when he became involved in a scandal
which led to a series of court cases.

[See also: Grimond]

Tindemans, Léo

Prime Minister of Belgium
1974–78 and a leading European christian democrat. Tindemans was born
in 1922 in Zwijndrecht and studied at the University of Ghent and the
Catholic University of Louvain. He became national Secretary-General of the
Social Christian Party in 1958. He was a member of the Belgian Chamber of
Deputies 1961–89. He was Minister of Community Affairs 1968–71;
Minister of Agriculture and Middle Class Affairs 1972–73; Deputy Prime
Minister and Minister for the Budget and Institutional Problems
1973–74. Named Prime Minister in 1974, he formed a Social
Christian–Liberal minority government and introduced an austerity
programme to counter the country’s economic problems, a plan which was
endorsed by the electorate in the elections of 1977. He resigned in October
1978 when the Flemish faction of his own party refused to support his plan
to divide Belgium into three linguistic regions. He served as Minister of
Foreign Affairs 1981–89; and Minister of State in 1992. He was
President of his party, the Belgian Christian People’s Party (CVP)
from 1979 to 1981. From the mid-1970s onwards he also played a very active
role in European politics. He was President of the European People’s
Party (EPP) 1976–85 and a Member of the European Parliament
1979–81 and again from 1989, acting as President of the EPP party
group from 1992.

Trimble, David

Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party
(UUP). Trimble was born in Bangor (Northern Ireland) in 1944. He studied law
at Queen’s University, Belfast, and then became a lecturer in law. He
became a Member of the House of Commons in 1990. Trimble was elected leader
of the UUP in 1995, and in that capacity was a central figure in the
negotiations leading to the Good Friday Agreement and the institutional and
political arrangements which followed from that. He was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize jointly with John Hume in 1998 for his efforts in producing a
peace settlement in Northern Ireland. He was elected to the Northern Ireland
Assembly in 1998, and, as leader of the largest party, became First Minister
(Prime Minister) that same year. Because of continued violence in Northern
Ireland by extremist Protestant and Catholic groups, the refusal of the IRA
satisfactorily to commence abolishing its arsenals of weapons, and the
concessions demanded of Unionists in relation to changes in the Royal Ulster
Constabulary and various other matters, Trimble has been hard put to retain
the support of a majority within his own party. In July 2001 he resigned as
First Minister of the Northern Ireland government in protest at the failure
of progress on arms decommissioning by the IRA, but was re-elected to that
post later the same year, following negotiations relating to arms
decommissioning.

[See also: Hume; Good Friday Agreement*; Irish Republican
Army*]

Ulbricht, Walter

Leader of the German Democratic
Republic (GDR) 1949–71. Ulbricht was born in 1893 in Leipzig. He
became a qualified carpenter. He joined the Social Democratic Party in 1912, fought in the
First World War, and joined the Communist Party (KPD) in 1919. He quickly
rose within the party to become a member of its Central Committee in 1923.
He was elected first to the Saxony Land Parliament, then to the Reichstag in
1928. When Hitler took power, Ulbricht emigrated first to France, then to
the Soviet Union. Here he was trained to assume power after the defeat of
Hitler. He was sent to Berlin in April 1945, and established the authority
of the refounded Communist party in the Soviet occupation zone, working
closely as political adviser with the Soviet Union occupation authorities.
As leader of the KPD, Ulbricht played a major role in compelling the fusion
of the KPD and SPD in 1946. Ulbricht became General Secretary (and therefore
leader) of the SED in 1950 and in 1960 became head of state. He was
generally a loyal follower of the policies of the Soviet Union, though this
meant severe disadvantages for the economy of the GDR, and was responsible
for agreeing to the violent suppression of the workers’ uprising in
Berlin in 1953 and the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961. In 1971 he
resigned as party leader on grounds of age (but also under pressure from the
USSR) and was succeeded by Honecker. Ulbricht remained head of state until
his death in 1973.

de Valera, Eammon

President of the Irish Republic
1959–73. De Valera was born in 1882 in New York but moved to Ireland
as a child. Trained as a teacher, he became involved with groups which
espoused republicanism for Ireland. He was one of the leaders of the 1916
Easter Rising in Dublin and imprisoned afterwards, but released under an
amnesty. He became leader of the nationalist organisation: Sinn Féin.
Escaping from another prison term in 1919, he went to the USA. Though he
opposed the 1921 Treaty between the United Kingdom and the Irish
nationalists and for a time promoted direct action against the British, he
became founder and leader of Fianna Fail in 1926, and became leader of the
Irish government in 1932, a post he held until 1948 and then twice more
(1951–54, 1957–59). He died in 1975.

Waldheim, Kurt

General Secretary of the UN
1971–82 and Austrian President 1986–92. Waldheim was born near
Vienna in 1918. After service in the German army, he entered the diplomatic
service, holding a number of posts, including that of Foreign Minister
(1968–70), before becoming UN General Secretary. He was nominated as
candidate of the Austrian People’s Party for the presidency of Austria
in 1986. During the campaign, allegations surfaced that Waldheim, as a young
officer, had been involved in atrocities in the Balkans during the Second
World War. Several countries refused to have dealings with Waldheim during
his presidency because of these allegations. Though an investigation cleared
Waldheim of the more serious allegations made against him, it did confirm
that he had knowledge of the atrocities and that he had not made full
admissions of such knowledge when questioned. He decided not to seek a
second term as President because of this affair.

Wehner, Herbert

Leading member of the Social
Democratic Party (SPD) in the Federal Republic of Germany. Wehner was born
in Dresden in 1906. He joined the Communist Party of Germany in 1927, and
went into exile from 1935. Returning to Germany after the Second World War,
he joined the SPD in 1946. He was elected to the Bundestag in 1949, and
became a deputy chairman of the SPD in 1958. He was a supporter of the idea
of a grand coalition in the 1960s, and when that coalition was created in
1966 he became a minister in Kiesinger’s government. He was leader of
the SPD parliamentary party in the Bundestag from 1969 until his resignation
in 1983. Wehner is considered to have played a major role in securing the
resignation of Chancellor Brandt in 1974, following revelations about the
espionage activities of Guillaume. Wehner died in 1990.

[See also: Brandt; grand coalition*; Guillaume Affair*]

von Weizsäcker, Richard

President of the Federal Republic of
Germany 1984–94. Von Weizsäcker was born in 1920 in Stuttgart.
After military service in the Second World War and a period as
prisoner-of-war, he trained as a lawyer. He joined the Christian Democratic
Union (CDU) in 1954, and was a Member of the Bundestag 1969–81. He was
an unsuccessful candidate for the office of federal president in 1974. He
became lord mayor of West Berlin from 1981 until his election as federal
President. He was federal President during the events leading to German
reunification. As President, he became respected, especially outside the
Federal Republic, for the measured statements he made concerning
Germany’s past and its responsibilities in the future, such as his
speech on the 40th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, which he
called a ‘day of liberation’ for Germany. He gave a
controversial press interview in 1992 in which he criticised the way in
which political parties in the Federal Republic seemed to have neglected
their representative role in favour of their own institutional interests. He
moved the presidential offices and his private residence to Berlin in
1993.

[See also: reunification of Germany*;
Vergangenheitsbewältigung*]

Wilson, Harold

James Harold Wilson was leader of the
British Labour Party from 1963 to 1976 and Prime Minister from 1964–70
and 1974 until he resigned in 1976. He was knighted in 1976 and entered the
House of Lords in 1983. He was born in Huddersfield in 1916. After studies
at Oxford University, and a brief period as a lecturer in economics, Wilson
became a civil servant. He became an MP in 1945, and held various
ministerial offices, including that of President of the Board of Trade from
1947 until he resigned in 1951 (along with Bevan) over the issue of charges
being imposed within the National Health Service. When Gaitskell died in
1963, Wilson was elected as leader of the Labour Party. He won the 1964
general election with a majority of only 4 seats, but called an election in
1966, which gave Labour a comfortable overall majority. In 1970 Wilson was
replaced as Prime Minister by Edward Heath after unexpectedly losing the
1970 general election. He became Prime Minister again in 1974, first heading
a minority government, then after a second general election that year in
charge of a government with a small overall majority. He tried,
unavailingly, to take Britain into the EEC in 1967. In 1975 he instituted
the first official national referendum in British politics, on the issue of
the terms of British membership of the European Community which Heath had
accepted for British entry in 1973.

[See also: Bevan; Callaghan; Gaitskell; Heath]

Wörner, Manfred

Defence Minister of the Federal
Republic of Germany 1982–88 and Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation (NATO) from 1988–94. Wörner was born in Stuttgart in
1934, and studied law at university. First elected to the Bundestag in 1965,
he soon developed a reputation for expertise on military matters within the
Christian Democratic (CDU) parliamentary party. In 1983 Wörner took
decisive action in dismissing General Kiessling (a highly placed German
officer within NATO) on grounds of homosexual behaviour, but as this action
was based on false intelligence information Wörner had to make a public
apology to the Bundestag. As NATO Secretary-General he had to guide NATO
through the period leading up to German reunification and the collapse of
the Soviet bloc, including NATO’s East European counterpart, the
Warsaw Pact. He died in 1994.

[See also: Kiessling Affair*]

If the inline PDF is not rendering correctly, you can download the PDF file here.

Liberal peacebuilding and the development-security industry

Book

Publication History:

This book critically examines the range of policies and programmes that attempt to manage economic activity that contributes to political violence. Beginning with an overview of over a dozen policies aimed at transforming these activities into economic relationships which support peace, not war, the book then offers a sustained critique of the reasons for limited success in this policy field. The inability of the range of international actors involved in this policy area, the Development-Security Industry (DSI), to bring about more peaceful political-economic relationships is shown to be a result of liberal biases, resulting conceptual lenses and operational tendencies within this industry. A detailed case study of responses to organised crime in Kosovo offers an in-depth exploration of these problems, but also highlights opportunities for policy innovation. This book offers a new framework for understanding both the problem of economic activity that accompanies and sometimes facilitates violence and programmes aimed at managing these forms of economic activity. Summaries of key arguments and frameworks, found within each chapter, provide accessible templates for both students and aid practitioners seeking to understand war economies and policy reactions in a range of other contexts. It also offers insight into how to alter and improve policy responses in other cases. As such, the book is accessible to a range of readers, including students interested in peace, conflict and international development as well as policy makers and practitioners seeking new ways of understanding war economies and improving responses to them.

Book

Publication History:

This book provides a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the five main parties of the extreme right in the Netherlands (Centrumdemocraten, Centrumpartij), Belgium (Vlaams Blok), and Germany (Die Republikaner, Deutsche Volksunion). Using primary research — including internal party documents — it concludes that rather than right-wing and extremist, the core ideology of these parties is xenophobic nationalist, including also a mix of law and order and welfare chauvinism. The author's research and conclusions have broader implications for the study of the extreme-right phenomenon and party ideology in general.

The evolution of Labour’s foreign policy, 1900–51

Book

Publication History:

This is the first book in a two-volume set that traces the evolution of the Labour Party's foreign policy throughout the twentieth century and into the early years of the new millennium. It is a comprehensive study of the political ideology and history of the Labour Party's world-view and foreign policy. The set argues that the development of Labour's foreign policy perspective should be seen not as the development of a socialist foreign policy, but as an application of the ideas of liberal internationalism. The first volume outlines and assesses the early development and evolution of Labour's world-view. It then follows the course of the Labour Party's foreign policy during a tumultuous period on the international stage, including the First World War, the Russian Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the build-up to and violent reality of the Second World War, and the start of the Cold War. The book provides an analysis of Labour's foreign policy during this period, in which Labour experienced power for the first time.